


Harry Potter: Adoptive Kaiju

by Gojirahkiin



Category: Godzilla - All Media Types, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack Crossover, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2018-09-22 06:57:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 27
Words: 56,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9589772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gojirahkiin/pseuds/Gojirahkiin
Summary: It seems like fanfics have had baby Harry raised by every character in fiction except for one: Godzilla, King of the Monsters! Watch as I descend into madness trying to take this story semi-seriously, by which I mean that it will have a plot that tries to make it work logicallyFor G-fans, this takes place in the Shōwa continuity (for non G-fans, that means the goofy 60s & 70s Godzilla). For fans of both, or just Harry Potter, sit back and enjoy the lunacy!





	1. Chapter 1

After he and Godzilla had defeated Gigan and Megalon in 1973, Jet Jaguar had set out to wander the world righting wrongs, vanquishing evil, and fighting crime. Being a robot with the ability to change its size at will had numerous advantages in advancing the cause of justice, and being able to fly at three-and-a-half times the speed of sound meant that there were few places he could not go to pursue evildoers.

One such pursuit – sadly unrelated to our story – led him to jolly old England where he beheld a sight strange even to a robot that had helped Godzilla perform a dropkick; a giant man riding a flying motorcycle across the skies. Confused and more than a little intrigued he followed at a distance, landing just out of visual range as the motorcycle touched down on a darkened street.

Jet Jaguar was only barely able to the see the three figures outside what his internal map determined to be Number 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, since he could not use his eye-lights to avoid exposure (he had put off the night-vision upgrade long-enough, he would have to install it soon), but he heard a conversation that he could only conclude was in code, as he heard multiple references to "Muggles" a word that did not exist in any language he knew of.

Regardless, he observed the three oddly dressed people until he saw yet more bizarre sights. First the giant man departed, riding into the sky on the motorcycle, then the next figure, seemed to transform into a cat which walked around the corner out of the robot's field of vision, and finally the last person appeared to… "release" for lack of a better term… the lights from the streetlights, revealing himself to be an incredibly strangely dressed man with an incredibly long beard, before vanishing into thin air.

After seeing such strange things, Jet Jaguar wanted desperately to perform a number of diagnostic scans, but his first priority was the bundle in front of the door. To his surprise the bundle was a baby! What kind of irresponsible people would leave a baby out on the cold night of Octo– November first as of one second ago? It couldn't be more than a few months old.

As he lifted the bundle to take it to the hospital, an envelope fell out. The robot wanted to ensure the baby's health and safety, but he needed to know why it had been left here of all places. He set the baby down and picked up the envelope.

His scans detected no contaminants on the paper… no, the parchment. How odd. He created a new internal casefile for this and filed that information away for later. He unfurled the parchment and read it. He came to the conclusion that whoever had written was at best insane, and at worst part of a cult. Between and betwixt the bizarre names and titles, multiple references to "Death Eaters," witches, wizards, a "dark lord" someone named Dumbledore (another oddity, the only birth certificate on record for any Dumbledore dated back to 1881, which could not possibly be correct), had decided to place the baby with his mother's next of kin ostensibly for "blood protection."

Jet Jaguar took a moment to decipher this information. From what he was able to determine, a pair of cults had fought a gang war of sorts, and this baby's whole family had been made a target, yet this Dumbledore figure – who insane or not fancied himself someone important with all the nonsensical titles preceding his name – thought to put the child with his aunt, one of the first places anyone of any competence would look, and by abandoning him on a doorstep in the dead of a cold winter night. It was madness!

Jet Jaguar stood there, holding the baby, as he struggled to make a decision. This was not a dilemma he had come across in his seven years of travel. Dumbledore might be insane, but according to his letter this "Voldemort" (undoubtedly a pseudonym) and his followers (the aforementioned "Death Eaters") had been killing people by the hundreds for years… and yet in scanning his data on events in the UK for the past decade, Jet Jaguar could find nothing about them. These writings could just be the ramblings of a madman, but Jet Jaguar had uncovered more than one conspiracy in the last seven years. He could not take the risk. The baby had to be protected. And there was only one place on Earth that had proven itself impregnable in Jet Jaguar's eyes, but first, he needed to go to the store.

A robot carrying a baby into a 24/7 store and purchasing baby products is not a common sight. Nor is said robot purchasing two plane tickets to Japan, but Jet Jaguar had become somewhat famous during the last decade, so, while people gawked, they did not interfere. After all, he was not just a robot that could change its size – he was also a karate master.

Once in Japan and outside of any buildings, Jet Jaguar took off, heading for Monster Island at the highest speed he could without harming the infant. The island had few humans, mostly determined National Geographic photographers and budding kaijuologists, although some had proposed creating a dedicated research facility. The sheer number of monsters that had congregated there made most people consider any long term occupation an elaborate form of suicide, but Jet Jaguar could communicate with the monsters.

It was for that reason he was heading for Mothra's den.

To call it a grotto would be inaccurate, as it was too large and open, but there was no better word for it. It was close to the sea, which was to the current larva's liking. The other humans on the island were a group of Mothra's worshippers, having come from Infant Island to worship the second of the twin larvae. Though not normally the most welcoming to outsiders, the Infant Islanders were almost fond of Jet Jaguar because, apart from the Shobijin, he was the only one capable of directly communicating with their goddess.

Speaking of the Shobijin, they were also on Monster Island at the moment. As Mothra's priestesses, they now found themselves traveling between islands quite frequently now that there were two Mothras, and so a strange conversation began.

Jet Jaguar spoke via his strange form of sign language to Mothra about the baby and the madness in the letter, and she relayed it to the Shobijin, who, while concerned about the child, asked why the robot had brought him here. It was then that Jet Jaguar explained his idea.

Because these "Death Eaters" and their master were apparently still at large and very good at hiding, Jet Jaguar wanted the child to be raised in the one place no one had ever dared to attack: Monster Island. Specifically, his plan was for the child to be adopted by one or more kaiju, so that he could live on the island without fear, while Jet Jaguar and the proper authorities went on the hunt for the cult.

It was, to use an overused phrase, so crazy it just might work. There was only one problem. While Mothra gave the idea her blessing, meaning baby Harry would always be welcome among the Infant Islander's and on Infant Island itself, Monster Island was another story. For on Monster Island Godzilla's word was law, and though time had softened his view of humans enough that he defended their cities, adopting one would be another matter entirely.

Still, they would make the attempt. Mothra, Jet Jaguar, and with him baby Harry, set out for the red water lake in the island's interior where Godzilla made his home.

Godzilla was less than pleased. Time had not made him so soft that he would take in human offspring. He had nearly rejected the proposal when he, the larva, and the robot, all heard strange cooing noises. All three turned to look and saw Minilla, the son of Godzilla, making faces and noises at the tiny infant, making it giggle.

Godzilla let out a grunt of mingled defeat and resignation and placed a hand against his face in a surprisingly human-looking motion. Minilla liked the baby, and while Godzilla could be strict, he was a doting father. If Minilla wanted a baby human for a playmate, so be it.

And so it was that Harry Potter's life as an adoptive kaiju began.


	2. Chapter 2

Such an odd adoption made for some strange changes to the island.

First and foremost, since Godzilla (and all other kaiju for that matter) lacked the dexterity required to gently handle a human infant, Mothra's worshippers were now allowed to roam the island freely. Where before Godzilla regarded their presence outside of the grotto as a hostile incursion, he now grudgingly accepted it, and where he lead, most other kaiju followed. That said, Kamacuras and Kumonga's nature as predators outweighed any fear or respect they might have had for the monster king, and so their territories were still off limits to anyone who did not wish to die a swift but horrible death.

Jet Jaguar left, but came back a few hours later with what seemed to be an entire warehouse's worth of infant care supplies: books, diapers, baby formula, and more diapers. Only after unpacking everything and storing them where the elements could not ruin them did he set off once again for the UK. The robot still needed to resolve the problem that had taken him there in the first place, and after that he needed to begin collaborating with the authorities to search for the Death Eaters and the mysterious figure calling himself Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. Still, he would find the time to visit, but his typical distance would lead to Harry thinking of the robot as an uncle more than anything else.

It fell to the Shobijin to educate Harry, insofar as one can educate a baby. While the Infant Islanders did their part in his day to day care (after all, it is impossible for a pair of two-inch tall women to care for a baby many times their size) it was generally accepted that Harry's heritage meant that he would want to learn the English language. Since the twin priestesses were also Infant Island's diplomats, they had seen fit to learn to speak and read English as well, so they spoke and sang to the baby daily. Their audible presence but lack of visible presence would lead to Harry thinking of them as beloved aunts rather than mothers.

Godzilla came to regard Harry as a son due to a combination of circumstance and instinct. Minilla, though unable to interact physically with the infant, liked to watch him, and as a result Godzilla had to watch over both of them. Gradually, his paternal instincts began to extend from Minilla to encompass Harry as well.

How Harry came to regard Godzilla as a father requires a bit more explanation, but it too is a result of Minilla's fascination with the infant Harry. As a result of Mothra's blessing on the baby, the entire village of her worshippers took care of Harry in shifts, so while the human faces looking down at him always changed and varied, Harry could always see Godzilla looming somewhere overhead.

As Harry grew up the Shobijin and the Infant Islanders began to notice strange things happening around him. Things he wanted tended to fly toward him, and when he wanted to play hide-and-seek he often wound up in places it would be extremely difficult – sometimes impossible – for someone his age to get to.

But it was only conclusively accepted that something was different about Harry James Potter when he teleported in front of everyone.

One afternoon, a four year old Harry was running along the beach racing Minilla to a rock jutting out of the shallow water further down as Godzilla slept leaning against a natural arch in the rocky cliff face. It was difficult given Minilla's greater stride length, but young kaiju was always slow and uncoordinated (something that many suspected was a result of his premature hatching). But then Minilla tripped over a boulder hidden just beneath the waves. The prince of monsters had enough time to screech in panic at the sudden falling sensation, and Harry had just enough time to turn around, scream, and shut his eyes.

Godzilla ran up but was too late to stop Minilla from falling. No one else had any time to do anything, but suddenly Harry was gone just before Minilla's bulk landed on him… and Harry's screams were now coming from _behind_ the horrified onlookers. Everyone turned around and there was Harry, eyes shut and shivering, with no footprints leading to where he was and no other signs of how he could possibly have gotten there without anyone seeing him.

Godzilla and Minilla made confused grunting sounds. Though glad that Harry was not crushed into paste, they were confused as to _how_ he wasn't. The same could be said of the Infant Islanders. They were not afraid of Harry, they had known him for too long, but they did not know what to make of him. They prayed to their goddess for guidance.

The twin priestesses spoke to Mothra as well, and the caterpillar kaiju reminded them that it was the robot Jet Jaugar that had brought Harry to the island, and so perhaps the robot would also know the answers. She also reminded the Shobijin that Jet Jaguar had mentioned "oddities" in the letter he found with Harry, but had chosen not to elaborate at the time.

So when Jet Jaguar next arrived the twin fairies confronted the robot with these incidents, asking to see the letter for themselves. Without responding, the robot handed them a copy of the letter that he'd had made when he first presented it to the authorities. Moments later, the Shobijin chastised him for rejecting the possibility of magic. Not only did he live in a world of aliens, giant monsters, and fairy priestesses, his knowledge of kaiju should have included the prophecy predicting Mechagodzilla's attacks, and of the kaiju golem King Shisa.

As abashed as a robot could be, Jet Jaguar managed to relay his apologies, and then explained that as a robot – a thing of science and reason – such a thing as counterintuitive as magic was, well, counterintuitive. It would answer a few questions that his investigations had raised, but in turn it would raise many others.

Mothra entered the "conversation" and bade him to elaborate, and through sign language and his limited vocalizations, Jet Jaguar relayed a strange tale.

His first act (after dealing with the multi-year and continent spanning criminal empire that lead him to the UK in the first place) had been to fly to the local police station in Surrey, where he supplied an audio cassette of what he had heard that night, and the letter, original envelope included. The robot's fame and reputation for assisting law enforcement across the world aided him greatly in obtaining their cooperation and a copy of the letter for his own records. His aid in uncovering the criminals who'd led him to the UK in the first place also meant that the robot was certified as an honorary member of law enforcement in Britain, so he easily got permission to question Harry's aunt.

That was where the investigation turned strange. It took far, far too much prompting by Jet Jaguar to make Petunia Dursley admit that she had ever even had a sister, let alone that she knew her sister had a son. The woman made clear multiple times that she wanted nothing to do with such "freakishness" a word she used multiple times in describing her sister and "her kind."

That line of investigation having lead to a dead end, Jet Jaguar returned to the police station to find the next anomaly. When he returned, no one had any memory of him entering before, nor any memories of his cassette or letter, neither of which could be found. Having preserved the copy of the letter, but realizing that something sinister was afoot, Jet Jaguar simply left to continue his investigation alone.

Searching through libraries' archives was slow, but as a robot Jet Jaguar was patient. There were no mentions of Death Eaters anywhere, nor were there any mentions of Voldemort, but there were other, stranger clues he found.

In searching for the names "Hagrid," "Minerva McGonagall," and "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore," there was only one thing that all three had in common: records of them attending a private, but unnamed boarding school in Scotland.

Following a hunch, he looked into the records of James Potter, and Lily's maiden name, Lily Evans. They too, had gone to the same school. Sensing a pattern, Jet Jaguar began looking for mentions of this school. A difficult task for a human, but slightly easier for the algorithms that comprised the mind of the robot. Something his pattern recognition software was able to determine was that while this school was never named, the same words and phrases were always used to describe it.

It was a private boarding school, it was prestigious, very selective, and located somewhere in the Scottish Highlands.

Scanning multiple records for information he was also able to determine that this school began taking children in at the age of eleven. From there records on all such individuals were very sparse, only rarely providing grades. Most of the time these children simply… vanished. There were never any photos of them from the months of September to June until they had reached at least the age of seventeen and more commonly eighteen. Yet their families never reported any of them missing, even in cases where records provided no indication that they had ever returned.

Jet Jaguar had uncovered conspiracies before, but never one so large or seemingly pervasive. It was at this point that he realized how long it had been since he'd last seen Harry, began to fear for his safety, and decided to fly towards Monster Island once more. Then, after seeing his fleshy "nephew" the Shobijin confronted him, thus bringing the story full circle.


	3. Chapter 3

The group decided not to inform Godzilla of their findings, fearing that he might choose to preemptively destroy Scotland now that his paternal instincts fully considered Harry his son. They also decided to only tell Harry that he was special, and to tell Godzilla that Harry might have powers other humans did not possess. He was still young and carefree, and there was no need to burden him with such weighty matters for as long as he remained on Monster Island, protected by both humans and kaiju alike.

Jet Jaguar, though loathe to abandon a case, put it on indefinite hold and resumed his patrols throughout the world. While Harry had become important to him, there were other foes to fight and more wrongs to right elsewhere. In particular, there were unconfirmed rumors of a kaiju sighting in Denmark of all places, so he set off after giving Harry his goodbyes.

So Harry Potter grew up without a care in the world until he reached age six. By that time he spoke English, Japanese, and a mix of grunts, growls, and even roars that let him "speak" directly to kaiju.

Now old enough to help with daily chores, he was sent out with a small group of Infant Islanders to gather water from one of Monster Island's larger lakes. The red water lake that Godzilla, Minilla, and (to a certain extent) Harry lived near was off limits that day, due to Godzilla teaching his elder son to use the atomic breath. And much to Harry's frustration, Godzilla still insisted that he was not ready to learn how to do that.

Such tasks usually passed without incident, but not today. Today Manda, serpentine god of the lost kingdom of Mu, woke from his slumber in the lake, disturbed by the sound of someone tripping on a rock and splashing in the water. The snake-like kaiju clambered out of the water on its vestigial limbs, hissing and growling at the intruders.

Harry, too immersed in the world of giant monsters to truly fear any of them, rushed forward and yelled, "STOP!"

Manda did. As the "second son" of the King of the Monsters, Harry was none too surprised, but he was thrown for a loop when Manda focused on him and spoke.

"A Speaker? It has been far too long since any conversed with me in the language of serpents. Tell me, young wizard, why have your companions disturbed me?"

The voice had only the slightest of sibilant qualities, but yet had a nearly unfathomable quality that suggested great age. Though Harry had communicated with kaiju before, none had ever spoken to him. The shock made Harry blurt the first things that came to his mind.

"We are sorry! It was an accident!… But what is a wizard?"

Though Harry believed he was speaking English (or possibly Japanese, sometimes he switched between the two without noticing), the Infant Islanders heard heard him hissing to the colossal snake and fled, this being far beyond any of the child's previous oddities.

"None of your elders have told you? Ah, you must be the adopted human hatchling Gojira and Mosura spoke of. In the tongues of men I am Manda, God and Guardian of the fallen kingdom of Mu, and eldest of the monsters. Behold!"

The serpent lifted full extent of his coils from the lake and used them to encircle Harry, providing the young wizard with an unobstructed view of all of his scales.

Confused and somewhat overwhelmed, the child once more spoke his mind.

"M-my name is Harry James Potter, and not to be rude, but why do you have so many scars?"

The snake god gave an inarticulate hiss and snapped, "Respect your elders, child! I was old when the first of Mosura's foremothers formed from the aether, and am not so desperate for conversation as to let such an insolent question stand!" Manda did not like to be reminded of his ill fated battle with the _Atragon_.

Frightened for the first time outside of the nightmares about green light, Harry backed away from the serpent's face and stuttered, "I am sorry, Manda! I am so small, and you are so large that I simply do not know how to act. I've talked to kaiju before, but none of them has ever really talked back, and I'm so confused and-and-"

To his shame, Harry began crying as he first felt the sting of isolation. As he'd said, kaiju never really spoke back, but it ran deeper than that. Sometimes he did things he didn't know how to explain, and while they never expressed fear the Infant Islanders sometimes looked at him strangely, and while the Shobijin never did that he could not truly play with them due to the size difference, which also applied the other way with kaiju. Such things normally did not bother him, but now alone and possibly in real danger of dying, he could see them with such clarity.

Manda's gaze seemed to soften. "Calm thyself child. It has been long since I spoke directly to a human, and longer still since I last spoke to a child. Now what was your question? What is a wizard?"

Through the haze of tears, Harry nodded.

"A wizard is a man blessed with powers far beyond those of most humans. You are young, untrained. You cannot control your power yet. No doubt when you feel strongly, strange things happen and others look at you oddly."

By now Harry had stopped crying, and was staring at the ancient deity with rapt attention. "Yes…" he murmured.

"That is what it is to be a wizard: to possess powers beyond those of ordinary men. One day you will be called to train, and you will have to choose what you want to do with your powers."

"But I can't make anything happen," Harry protested. "It always just does."

"And that is why you shall be trained. Do you see the fruit dangling from that tree?"

Harry looked towards where Manda was facing and saw it. A large, luscious Monster Island mango. A delicacy to humans and kaiju alike.

"You want it, don't you?" Manda inquired, with the tone of someone who already knows the answer.

"Yes…" Harry was barely resisting drooling. The one he could see was nearly the size of a watermelon.

"Someday you will be able to use your powers without emotion, but for now, focus on the mango. Think hard about how much you want it. Concentrate on how delicious it would be. And when you can barely stand it, envision it coming to you."

And Harry did so. Monster Island's mangoes were delicious, but took so long to grow and ripen that they were a rare treat for anyone. To keep one for himself would be incredibly selfish, but there was no one else around, everyone else had left him behind. He focused hard on how much he wanted it and how tasty it would be once he opened it up. It would be so sweet if only it would just come out of that tree.

He heard something snap.

Harry opened his eyes and saw the fruit floating towards him. Not falling, or it would have splattered against Manda's scales. Floating carefully until it was on the ground in front of him. Harry held it with a mix of awe and a strange exhaustion. Why would he be tired, he hadn't really done anything… right?

"Perhaps that was a bit too much for one so young, but consider that your first lesson."

A sudden familiar roar came from off to the side, and Harry turned to see Godzilla stomping towards them.

"Teaching," Manda replied to the titanic father, "I take it you thought he wasn't ready yet?"

Godzilla grunted and gave a low, menacing growl.

"Very well, but I would begin teaching him if I were you. The moth is not always right, as you yourself would know." And with that Manda slithered back into the lake.

The very next day, Harry had his first lesson in breathing fire.

Godzilla demonstrated first. The spikes on his back flared neon blue, and then azure radioactive plasma burst from his mouth. Then he gestured for Minilla to go.

Harry's elder brother only had stubs where his spikes would someday be, and they did not yet glow, but after taking a deep breath and seeming to prepare himself, Minilla spat a turquoise ring of smoke that eventually dissipated.

Now Godzilla gestured for Harry to go next. Details were difficult to express in the language of kaiju, but Harry's father managed to convey that he needed to draw from power deep within himself.

Harry concentrated, staring without seeing at the red water lake as he focused on feeling for some kind of power in himself. For a moment, he thought he felt something almost like a spark, and at that moment he took a deep breath and exhaled.

Out of his mouth came a blue ring of fire that faded away not far from his face.

Harry collapsed, feeling exhausted but pleased by that result, and Godzilla and Minilla both applauded him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The kaiju sighting in Denmark isn't anything important, I just thought it would be funny to reference the relatively obscure Danish kaiju movie Reptilicus (1961). And I promise that the story will pick up the pace from here, I just needed these first few chapters to properly mesh the Godzilla and Harry Potter worlds.


	4. Chapter 4

Since that fateful encounter with Manda, everything changed, as if the world knew he was ready for what he would face ahead. Godzilla gave him lessons and breathing fire at least every few days, and when Mothra found out, she instructed the Shobijin that it was time for Harry to know the full truth.

While Harry had guessed that he was adopted (no one in the village referred to him as their son, and there were far too many differences between him and Godzilla for that relationship to be biological) he never really thought about it or realized how different his life could have been until he read the letter. With the Shobijin explaining as best they could, Harry learned that his parents had been murdered by an evil wizard named Voldemort when he was only a year old, and that a man named Dumbledore – the same man Jet Jaguar had spent so many months trying to track down – had seen fit to abandon him on a doorstep with nothing but a blanket and the letter.

"But why?" the young wizard asked. "Did he know that the people in the house would want me?"

The Shobijin's faces darkened as they only rarely did. Together they replied, "He knew nothing of the sort. Jet Jaguar entered the home in an effort to learn more about why you might have been left there. Despite the woman who lives there being your aunt, he informed us that she hated even the thought of your mother, and wanted nothing to do with you. From what little he told us, we know that she is a vile woman and it would be best if you put her out of your mind."

Shocked, Harry obeyed. He had done nothing to the woman, and yet she was so determined to hate him? He would not dwell on the mystery of why. An early lesson Harry had absorbed from Godzilla was not to think to hard on the mysteries of human minds; that way lay only madness and confusion.

It helped that they immediately told him that Jet Jaguar, though unable to locate Dumbledore or the mysterious school he supposedly ran, had discovered that the school, cult, or whatever it was began coming for people when they turned eleven, so Harry had five years to prepare himself should he choose to enter the human world, or should the human world attempt to drag him away.

Harry had thought on this for a few moments before deciding that he wanted to know what his birth parents had seen out there, to be among his own kind for at least a little while.

Later that day, Mothra summoned him and informed him that soon she would weave her cocoon and be unresponsive to all around her, but she told him that one of the easiest ways to acquaint himself with magic, would be to meditate outside of her cocoon and try to feel the intangible energy in the air. Harry thanked her for the advice and went on his way. He was not sure that he believed in her, Manda, or anyone as a deity, but he respected her and did treat her with a degree of reverence.

Within the next month, Jet Jaguar returned, and upon learning that Harry was being taught to breathe fire, his robot uncle offered to help teach him fight in a direct manner that Godzilla simply couldn't.

This was how Harry wound up sitting on Minilla's shoulder at midday, watching Jet Jaguar, now in giant form, squaring off with their father Godzilla.

Godzilla's first lesson was to roar to intimidate foes and to give them a single chance to surrender. Minilla's roar seemed to be more of a screech, but Harry listened carefully and could tell that it was simply a much higher pitched version of their father's trademark bellow.

After that short lesson, the mock battle began. Jet Jaguar immediately threw a punch, which Godzilla caught and then – using the robot's own momentum – turned into a powerful throw that slammed the robot onto the ground.

The robot was down but not out, and swiftly rolled to avoid a stomp from his sparring partner. Springing back up, the mechanical titan delivered a roundhouse kick to Godzilla's chest which managed to stagger the monster king. Not the least bit deterred, the radioactive dinosaur spun around, swinging his tail at his opponent. Jet Jaguar caught the tail, but it immediately became clear that it was a tactical mistake, as the tail's violent lashing tugged him to and fro despite the extra effort Godzilla needed to expend.

Jet Jaguar simply let go and used his momentum to roll and jump back to a standing position in front of Godzilla, which seemed to surprise him. The robot took the opportunity to tackle his old ally and knock him to the ground.

Godzilla rolled and stood back up, and then… he applauded the robot's performance. The two even shook hands afterwards, and Jet Jaguar used his sign language to ask if Harry was convinced that he was a worthy teacher.

Having never witnessed a real battle between kaiju, Harry was awed and immediately agreed to be his robot uncle's student.

It was a decision that in the short term, Harry would sometimes regret. While he did do chores for and around the Infant Islanders' village, they were rarely physically grueling tasks. This was not the case with Jet Jaguar's exercises and combat training. The robot had performed careful calculations to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks to Harry's growing body, but those calculations did not take pain into account.

He ran through the jungle trying to escape detection. He swam in the lakes to build strength and endurance. He wrestled Jet Jaguar as much as he could given the robot's massive strength advantage, and learned ways to use his relatively small, scrawny build to his advantage. He lifted large rocks to build muscle mass. In short, he pushed his young body to its limits at his uncle's urging. Even if the robot was not around, there were still many things he could do to train his body.

Godzilla endured enemy attacks because he knew he could outlast them, a strategy that had rarely failed him. As a human, Harry could not do that; he needed to fight smarter, and incorporated a lot of dodges and dives into his style to avoid enemy attacks and escape enemy grapples.

When Mothra finished spinning her cocoon, Harry explained the message she had given him to Jet Jaguar, and so the robot granted him a reprieve of sorts: an additional day off from his training per week to meditate on the magic the moth goddess said would be in the air.

It was a strange, and at first fruitless effort, but Harry persevered, and shortly before Mothra emerged in her imago form, Harry felt it. He reached outward in the same way that he reached inward before trying to breathe fire and felt a maelstrom of power ebbing and flowing all around him. It was there and yet not at the same time, much like the spark he felt when trying to look inward.

With training and meditation, Harry grew strong for a child his age, but he still could not properly breathe fire, and he had yet to topple Jet Jaguar during one of their training sessions.

His best performance had been during one of these sessions in which he accidentally drew on his inner power (he supposed that this was what made him a wizard) as he roared, momentarily stunning his robot teacher with a roar that was technically too loud and too intimidating for what his body could produce. That had given him a moment's head start and he'd forced his uncle back a few steps, but that was all.

Years passed and Harry grew stronger and stronger through the combination of his training and Monster Island's plentiful and nutritious food. Though he disliked it, he had honed his ability to be stealthy by avoiding not only Kamacuras and Kumonga – sometimes in their own territories – but also the photographers that were coming to the island in growing numbers lately. From what little the Shobijin told him about that, humanity had learned a few tricks that allowed them to avoid aggravating kaiju, and many of the photographers were also surveyors scouting out potential spots for a research center.

Finally, a day came when Harry was almost eleven and something unusual happened. As he woke up that morning, he saw a large tired owl looking at him expectantly, with a letter tied to its leg.


	5. Chapter 5

Harry wasn't entirely sure what to do now. His first instinct was to try talking to it, but he wasn't sure it would work. Theoretically it should… on one of the few occasions he'd spoken with Baragon the carnivorous kaiju had advised him to never talk to his food (too much risk of forming an emotional attachment), but since he didn't plan on eating the owl unless it attacked him first he decided to try.

Harry started crooning and softy rumbling at it, which it made it tilt its head in momentary confusion. He tried Japanese which made it tilt its head the other way. Finally he tried English.

"Is that for me? Come here boy… or girl… nice owl."

The owl fluttered closer to him and stuck out the leg the envelope was attached to. After a moment of paranoia (It could be a trap!) he decided that he wasn't afraid of the possibility, untied it, and took it.

The letter was addressed "To Mr. H.J. Potter, the Hut on the Beach, Monster Island.

HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY

Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore  
( _Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock,_  
_Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards_ )

Dear Mr. Potter,  
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.  
Term begins on 1 September. We await your owl by no later than 31 July.  
Yours sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Deputy Headmistress"

After a few moments, another line of text appeared below.

"P.S. Due to the distance that this owl has traveled, if you should accept then a member of staff will arrive with a Portkey to facilitate easy travel."

At this moment Harry fully understood why Jet Jaguar had been unable to investigate Dumbledore: all these titles seemed to be utter nonsense. The Shobijin had given him some education about the governments and major organizations in the world – their de facto status as Infant Island's diplomats had prompted them to study such things – but he'd never heard of any of these places or things or whatever they were.

Harry looked up from the letter to see the owl staring at him expectantly. Reasoning that it was waiting for his response Harry realized he needed to stall for a bit.

"I need to talk to my family about this first. If I get you a couple of lizards to eat for the trip will you wait?"

The owl seemed to perk up at the mention of food, and Harry could tell from its body language that it agreed.

Harry took the letter and ran through the village to alert the Shobijin. In turn the Shobijin decided to seek Mothra's counsel, and Mothra decided that it would only be right to alert Godzilla, and en route to Godzilla's location Jet Jaguar arrived from an overnight investigation in South America, so the whole family had gathered by the red water lake.

Harry did not expect the letter to set off an argument.

Jet Jaguar's position was that the letter still provided no real information, and in fact created even more questions (what on Earth was a Portkey?), and thus that everything should be either disregarded or a reply sent to request further information.

Mothra expressed cautious optimism given that the letter framed the decision as a choice, suggesting that the incident that Halloween night was born of well meaning ignorance rather than deliberate malice. The Shobijin agreed, elaborating that it was simply human nature for someone to believe that an aunt would love her own nephew.

Godzilla's position was that this was Harry's battle to fight, and thus his decision alone, and Minilla expressed the utmost faith in his little brother no matter what decision he made.

Harry thought for a long moment and addressed them all, "Uncle JJ, I know that there isn't a lot of information, but my birth parents went to this place, and while all of you have been the best family I could ask for no matter how strange it might seem to others, I want to know what its like to be around not just other people, but witches and wizards like me… I'm going to agree to go to this Hogwarts place."

Once all requisite translations were provided, Godzilla nodded approvingly. There was only one problem.

"Er… does anyone have a pen and paper? I apparently need to reply in a letter."

Jet Jaguar produced some from a hidden compartment in his side. With the decision made, the robot accepted reality as it was while making plans to follow the owl back to wherever it came from. Harry hastily wrote a reply and caught a couple of lizards from the underbrush to give to the owl, which flew off in the direction of mainland Japan, with Jet Jaguar following at a distance.

That night there was a feast in the village. They were part of his extended family and acknowledged that he was about to go through some kind of rite of passage, if not into adulthood outright then into some new phase of life.

Weeks passed and near the end of July Jet Jaguar returned with a fascinating story to tell.

Jet Jaguar relayed that tracking the owl had been surprisingly difficult, once more due to anomalies that the robot could not explain with science and reason. The bird frequently seemed to vanish into thin air, and when Jet Jaguar flew to the same spot, he would be overcome with a sudden belief that he had forgotten something, or had an urgent appointment elsewhere, despite neither of those things being true. As soon as he gave in to the sudden urge to leave, he could overcome the desire with his programming and resume his observation until the owl showed itself again, but these incidents were unsettling.

Eventually the owl made its way to the Scottish Highlands and at a point Jet Jaguar marked on a map he was able to see a derelict castle near a lake, both surrounded by warning signs. The owl vanished as it flew towards one of the broken towers and never emerged again. When the robot attempted to follow, he was overcome with a belief that the place was dangerous and that he ought to turn around. Yet again, as soon as he obeyed the impulse his robotic programming allowed him to logically determine that such a thing was not the case, but functionally there was a barrier he could not cross.

Accepting that the Shobijin and Mothra were right and that magic was involved, Jet Jaguar surmised that the castle was Hogwarts, and the headquarters for the figure calling himself Dumbledore, and that everywhere that such a barrier existed was another such "magical" place.

The priestesses had never heard of such a type of magic, but Mothra chirped and trilled to them, and explained that many human lifetimes ago, magic had been commonplace in the world, but for reasons she had never discovered it had suddenly vanished. The ever-reincarnating goddess concluded that each place was most likely a sanctuary for the magical that remained.

Harry for his part was confused. Living on an island filled with kaiju, and looking up to Godzilla as a father, Harry had learned that you faced your fears and fought your own battles, come what may. But now it seemed that witches, wizards, and all that was magical, were just hiding. Harry found himself feeling disappointed. Why were they hiding? And from what?

He would soon have the chance to ask for himself.

On his birthday there was a stir in the village, where a giant (compared to ordinary humans; still miniscule in comparison to kaiju) man suddenly appeared and started looking for Harry. Though wary of outsiders, the villagers knew that something like this would happen someday, so they simply lead him directly to Harry.

And if that location happened to leave him slack-jawed and silent at the sight of Mothra, well, that wasn't really their fault was it?

The commotion from the village and a few soft chirps from Mothra brought Harry out of meditation and prompted him to turn around.

"'Arry!"

A large bearded man in a black coat with many, many pockets was walking quickly toward Harry. Without any sort of prelude or introduction, the man pulled him into a bone-crushing hug.

"Oh, 'Arry, when Dumbledore told me that yeh weren't at yer aunt and uncle's I was worried sick, but now I find out that you've been in paradise all this time!"

The boy-who-might-be-about-to-die-from-lack-of-oxygen gasped out, "Not to be rude, but who are you?"

The giant dropped him and replied, "Don't remember me? Ah tha's alright. Last time I saw yah yeh could fit in one o' me pockets. I'm Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of the Keys at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. O' course, you'll know all about that now won't you?"

"I know some of it…" Harry trailed off, but before Hagrid could speak again Harry interrupted, "Wait! Before you tell me more, we should go see the rest of the family."

Harry promptly ran to the base of Mothra's shrine and grabbed a basket.

"These are my aunts the Shobijin," he opened the basket as he did so, introducing the diminutive fairies to the giant, "and you saw Mothra when you came in, but we need to introduce you to my dad and big brother."

If Hagrid was at all confused by this barrage of information, he took it in stride, even when asked to grab onto one of Mothra's legs and hold on tight. In fact, he seemed downright giddy to get closer to Mothra.

Mothra, sensing Harry's intent, flew them toward the red water lake where Godzilla and Minilla made their home.

On their way Jet Jaguar flew by at human size, giving Harry a thumbs up as he did so, and receiving one in return to let him know that things were all okay.

Mothra landed next to the lake and Harry, seeing his robot uncle signing at the water, immediately knew what was up. He turned toward Hagrid and said, "If you happen to have an umbrella, in one of those pockets, you might want to open it."

Hagrid did so, but started to reply, "Alright, but w-"

And then Godzilla burst from the deep waters of the lake with a small roar, analogous to a yawn, Minilla surfacing beside him.

"That's my dad Godzilla, my big brother Minilla, and the robot next to you now is my uncle Jet Jaguar."

Hagrid was smiling broadly since Godzilla surfaced, and turned to see the android next to him. The robot offered a hand to shake, but it seemed that this was one revelation too many, and the giant man fainted.


	6. Chapter 6

Harry did not know what to do. While one could argue that eleven years was a long time, at least six of those had been spent as a carefree child, and during the other five he had no memory of anyone fainting around him.

Thankfully, his robot uncle did know what to do. Growing until his cupped hand was the depth of a bucket, Jet Jaguar scooped some water from the lake and splashed Hagrid's face.

The half-giant (a guess on Harry's part; his honed sense of smell said Hagrid was not completely human… either that or he had something very strange in one of those pockets) stirred and started mumbling.

"I was havin' the most wonderful dream. I just met Harry and he was living in a tropical paradise full o' magnificent beasties… and a weird looking golem."

"That wasn't a dream Hagrid. I'm right here," Harry reminded the man. He supposed incredulity was a normal reaction kaiju. He had snuck up to enough photographers in time to see their first reaction to kaiju: based on their expressions, a combination of slack-jawed awe, profound terror, and sheer disbelief to the point of pinching themselves.

Hagrid opened his eyes to see both Harry and Jet Jaguar looking down at him. The robot extended a hand once again, this time to help the large man up.

"I can't tell yah how happy I am ter see yeh and living with so many wonderful creatures too."

From his position in the lake, Godzilla gave an approving nod as Jet Jaguar provided a running translation. It was about time a human showed him proper respect.

"But can I ask yeh somethin'? Not just fer me, but fer Professor Dumbledore. How did yeh get here? I was there when Dumbledore left yeh at yer aunt and uncle's."

Harry gave a surreptitious glance to Jet Jaguar, who gave him a sideways thumbs-up to indicate that it was okay to tell some of the truth.

"Well, it was really cold that night, and my uncle," Harry gestured to the robot, "found me out there with just the blanket and the letter. The letter made no sense to him because he didn't know about magic, but it sounded to him like bad people were after me, so he brought me here because it's the safest place he knows. I was raised by my aunties and the village with my dad and my brother watching over me all the time."

It was a perfectly normal explanation if not for the fact that Harry's gestures indicated a pair of fairies and a pair of kaiju in addition to the robot, but now that Harry had answered, he had his own question; "Before I interrupted – which was rude and I apologize," he added with a glance at the Shobijin, "you were starting to say something. What was it?"

"Hm? Oh, right. Well, yeh said that yeh knew some things, but what is it you know? What do yeh know abou' Hogwarts, and magic, and your parents?"

"Well, I know Hogwarts is in Scotland, and Manda said that magic is some power I have inside me that I need to learn to use, and my birth parents… they died protecting me, right?"

Hagrid sniffed at the memories, but soldiered on. "Yeah. Tha's about right. But who's Manda?"

Before Harry could say anymore he was interrupted by Jet Jaguar's rapid gesticulations and the accompanying sounds.

"Oh, my uncle wants to know why you came today and… a bunch of things really. He can fly, and he was following the owl, but he couldn't find Hogwarts and wants to know why."

"Well that doesn't make a lick o' sense. I've never heard of a golem that can fly, but it's probably possible, but any golem even able to walk around should've had enough magic to get into Hogwarts."

"Uncle JJ's not a golem, he's a robot."

"What's a robot?"

Harry was baffled by Hagrid's lack of knowledge, and Jet Jaguar momentarily stopped translating in shock. Thankfully, the Shobijin offered to explain.

"Mister Hagrid, you are half correct. Jet Jaguar is a robot, which might be described as a nonmagical golem."

"A MUGGLE GOLEM KNOWS ABOUT MAGIC?!" the large man boomed. At this moment he closed his umbrella and pointed it at the robot, who immediately assumed a combat stance. Harry (while very confused about what Hagrid could do with an umbrella) got between them to prevent any fighting – he wanted answers right now, not a fight – but that caused Godzilla to loom over them all and start growling because of the possible threat to Harry.

"Hagrid! Just hold on a second! What's a muggle and why is it a big deal if one knows about magic?"

Hagrid was still trying to point the umbrella at the robot even as Harry tried to keep himself between the two. He responded, "Muggles just a word for nonmagical folk, but them knowing about our world is against the Statute o' Secrecy, it's not allowed!"

"Okay, but why?"

Hagrid looked confused for a moment, but said, "Because if they knew, the muggles would want magical solutions to all their problems, and, er, there's more an' I know it, but I fell asleep in Professor Binn's class that day…"

Harry didn't know what else to say to keep Hagrid and Jet Jaguar from coming to blows, but thankfully the Shobijin interceded again.

"Mister Hagrid, is there an exception to the secrecy rule for relatives?"

"Yes, as a matter o' fact there is."

"Well then since Jet Jaguar is Harry's uncle, he has a right to know then, correct?"

Sensing the logic of this statement, the robot immediately got out of his stance and started trying to calm the still-looming Godzilla. Hagrid took another moment to lower his umbrella as he said, "Yeah, I suppose so, long as he don't tell anybody that is."

Harry smiled gratefully at his aunts and then tried to get Hagrid back on topic.

"So… why couldn't Uncle JJ find Hogwarts?"

"Well there're a bunch o' spells on the school to keep muggles from finding it, so it was probably one of them that kept him out. Can't say I know a spell to keep out a muggle golem though…"

Harry nodded in understanding. "So, I know we got kind of off track, but what bring's you here today?"

"Ah, well the first priority was to make sure that you were safe and sound. But," here Hagrid wore a grin that suggested his next statement was not at all sincere, "I'm not sure you are yet. I need to see what other beasties are creeping around the island. You know, just to be sure."

With what appeared to be all diplomatic issues resolved, Mothra took the Shobijin back to her den. Godzilla, having had the entire conversation translated into kaiju, gave Harry his approval to take Hagrid around the island. Jet Jaguar invited himself on the tour to potentially learn more about Hagrid, Dumbledore, and magic in general.

The nearest kaiju was Anguirus. At the sight of him, Hagrid let out what would eventually come to be referred to as a loud "squee," and expressed a desire to adopt him.

This was fairly indicative of most of Hagrid's reactions to the various kaiju.

The kaiju's reactions to Hagrid were rather mixed. For some, the fact that he was a friend of Harry's was good enough to get him a pass. The carnivores among them expressed slight disappointment though; Gorosaurus in particular commented that most humans weren't very tasty, but that Hagrid looked like he would make a passable morsel.

Jet Jaguar decided Hagrid would be happier not knowing that piece of information.

The one standout among Hagrid's reactions was to Kumonga. Even as the spider kaiju attempted to cover them in his spray of webbing, Hagrid gushed about aspects of his anatomy that both boy and robot suspected even the arachnid did not know. Jet Jaguar was forced to drag the spider enthusiast away, with Hagrid giving the oddly wistful comment, "Memories…"

That evening back at Harry's hut, Hagrid finally admitted the other half of what he was supposed to do.

"I was supposed ter have taken yeh shopping for your school supplies, but yeh could say I got distracted."

Harry laughed. Hanging out with Hagrid had been fun. During the hiking in between kaiju lairs, he'd heard a lot of stories about his birth parents and felt closer to them than he ever had before. He'd also learned more about Voldemort, whose name he apparently should not say around his fellow magic users. Jet Jaguar had almost comically panicked at the very idea of Obliviators, wizards whose sole job was to erase and modify memories and records to expunge all hints of magic, although there coverups of Voldemort's atrocities did explain why he could find no mention of the man or his followers.

Harry's laughter died down and it occurred to him to ask, "How would you have taken me shopping? You say that I would've been able to see any magical areas here since I'm a wizard, and there aren't any."

Hagrid reached into one of his pockets and pulled out what looked like a ratty, discarded shoe. "With this Portkey," the half-giant replied as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Portkey's are old shoes?"

"What? No, no. Portkeys only look like junk so muggles don't pick 'em up. A Portkey is enchanted to take you somewhere. This shoe would take us to London. It's how I'll be getting home tonight and how I got here this mornin'."

"You're kidding."

"Oh no. Magic can do just about anythin' Harry, just you remember that. I'll see you tomorrow, first thing in the morning."

And with that Hagrid tapped the shoe with his umbrella and disappeared before Harry's very eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to capture Hagrid's dialogue and personality as much as I could, but as an author my great weakness is dialogue, so if you could review this chapter in particular and let me know how I did that would be great.
> 
> I also feel like I must apologize for skimping on Hagrid's reactions to the monsters, but I really couldn't think of any reaction except a desire to adopt them for any except Kumonga.


	7. Chapter 7

Harry woke up the next morning with a strange feeling in his chest. On the one hand, what happened "yesterday" might have just been last night's dream. He certainly felt like he had trekked all around the island, but Jet Jaguar's workout regimen could have that effect sometimes. He dearly hoped his "dream" was reality; it had been a lot of fun.

He got his confirmation of a sort when he stepped outside the door to find all the village children leaning or sitting against his hut, looking at a spot not far away.

He asked the youngest, "Why are you all here?"

"We want to see if we can catch the giant popping up!"

Harry grinned broadly. Hagrid hadn't been a figment of his imagination after all.

Harry didn't have a watch or really any way to tell time besides using the sun and the shadows it cast, but if he did have one, he would know that Hagrid appeared with a pop just a few minutes later, causing a bunch of delighted children to scatter, jumping around and making popping noises as their elders shook their heads, but smiled nevertheless.

"Good mornin' Harry! Ready for your first trip to the Wizarding World?"

"Yes!… But where exactly are we going?"

"Ter Diagon Alley. Yeh can buy just about anythin' there, and everything on your school list o' course."

"Is this the part where I have to hold onto the shoe?"

"Not yet… lemme see here…" Hagrid spent several moments rummaging through different pockets, "Ah, here yeh go: you're first wizard robes and shoes. Can't have yeh goin' to London in just a loincloth now can we?"

"We can't?" Harry asked, with all the innocence of someone raised by a reclusive tribe in the tropics, not to mention kaiju who did not need any sort of clothing at all.

"Oh no. People will think it's indecent. More importantly, its just too cold for that."

Harry put on the shoes and robes. Thick and all black, they were stifling in the island heat.

"Now we use the Portkey. Grab it and hold on tight."

Harry did so, and when Hagrid tapped it with his umbrella he suddenly felt a pulling sensation around his navel, accompanied by the disconcerting feeling that he was spinning. Moments later, he almost stumbled as he found himself in a cool, foggy area. The Shobijin had told him about London and how it looked so different from Monster Island, but it was another thing to actually be there, with the sounds and smells of the city.

It took him a moment to recognize an obvious problem.

"Hagrid, you said magic is supposed to be a secret. Why did we appear in public?"

Indeed, it seemed there was a large cluster of tourists nearby, plenty of whom could have seen them or caught them on camera.

"Oh I know it looks like we are, but there are all kinds of special spells and charms on this area so nobody notices it when people Portkey in. Now come on, we don't got all day."

Harry followed Hagrid through the winding streets and alleys to a nondescript part of London that no one else seemed to be paying much attention to. Having grown up in a supportive environment that did not stifle imagination and thought, Harry was able to put the clues together and realize that there was more magic at work here.

"Here we are. The Leaky Cauldron. It's a famous place."

From the outside, it appeared to be a pub. A rather shabby and grubby looking one, but a pub nonetheless. Hagrid opened the door and entered, and Harry slipped in behind him.

Everyone inside waved to Hagrid – he seemed to be popular here – but before anyone could say anything the bartender stopped cold, eyes locked on Harry.

"Bless me soul, Harry Potter… what an honor."

Harry suddenly experienced the strange and paradoxical phenomenon that was a deafening silence. And then suddenly in a blur of motion the crowd surged forward and started shaking his hand and praising him.

It was an unusual ten minutes. Hagrid had mentioned that he was famous and that Dumbledore had wanted him away from that kind of thing, but Harry had never imagined it would be like this. Still, the Shobijin had taught him some things about how to handle situations like this; he knew he needed to be polite, even though the kaiju in him wanted to roar, growl, and make everyone back away.

After meeting the stuttering Professor Quirrell and Daedalus Diggle came around for a second time, Hagrid realized that this was potentially a problem and gently but forcefully broke up the crowds, announcing that Harry still needed to get his things.

The day would only get stranger and more wondrous. Hagrid parted a brick wall and led Harry to Diagon Alley, where Harry drank in the sights, sounds, and smells as Hagrid led the way to Gringotts. The snow white building loomed over everything else in the alley. And Harry was too busy staring at all of the Goblins' activities to hear anything about vault seven hundred and thirteen.

He saw his family's wealth. He had no idea what things were worth – there'd been no need for currency of any kind on Monster Island – but he got the sense that this would be more than enough to buy his school supplies. Still, when Hagrid looked away Harry discretely grabbed a few handfuls more of gold coins.

Because of the fact that everything was a day later on Monster Island, Draco Malfoy had actually gotten all of his clothing yesterday, so Harry's visit to Madam Malkin's passed without incident. This little change got Harry out of the store a bit sooner, which gave him just enough time to purchase _Curses and Countercurses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue-Tying and Much, Much More)_ by Professor Vindictus Viridian when Hagrid wasn't looking. Hagrid might not think Harry was ready for any of those, but Godzilla would be proud that he was already thinking of other ways to fight his battles if necessary. He also purchased one other book, tucked into a corner of the shop where most people wouldn't see it. It was called, _Surviving Snape for Hogwarts First Years: The Unofficial, Unapproved Guide to Enduring the Worst Professor Ever_ , and purported to be under a charm to look like a wizarding children's book to adults so that Dumbledore couldn't use his influence to get it out of the store. It also claimed to have been written by Hogwarts alumni from Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw. Harry bought it mostly on a whim; one professor couldn't be that bad could he?

Finally, Harry arrived at Ollivander's wand shop. Mr. Ollivander himself was a strange man. In a bizarre, clinical sort of way Harry felt closer to his parents after finding out what their wands were made of. As Harry tried different wands, Mr. Ollivander actually wound up having a very deep conversation with him about Monster Island, and he was particularly intrigued by Mothra and Manda, the two who claimed to be old enough to remember magic being common.

"I wonder, Mr. Potter, if I might ask you to get a scale or a hair from from them? If they are indeed ancient magical creatures, they would have remarkable properties as wand cores."

"I don't know Mr. Ollivander. I can ask them, but even though they're monsters they have minds of their own and might refuse."

"Of course, of course, I merely wondered. A great deal of wandlore was lost when we wizards had to hide ourselves, and I suppose I thought for a moment that these creatures resembled those of our myths, but back to the matter at hand… I wonder…"

The moment the stick touched his hand, Harry knew this was the one. Blue sparks and rings leapt from the tip as he waved it around.

"Holly, eleven inches, with a phoenix feather core. An unusual combination, quite supple, but very curious that that wand should choose you."

At Harry's questioning look, the wand maker elaborated, "The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter, but I remember every wand I've sold. The phoenix that gave its feather for your wand gave one other… and that wand's brother gave you that scar."

Harry occasionally saw his reflection in the still waters of the lakes on Monster Island, but he'd never paid much attention to his scar. It had never quite sunk in that he'd received it when his parents were murdered… but that did not change the fact that his wand was now his wand.

"I think we can expect great things from you Mr. Potter. You-know-who did great things as well. Terrible, but great…"

Harry took his leave, not sure whether he liked Mr. Ollivander or not, and thus not sure whether or not he would pass along his request to Mothra and Manda, but it left his mind when he found Hagrid standing outside with a beautiful snowy owl.

"Happy birthday Harry! Figured that since I got to start making up for all the birthdays I missed, and an owl is as good a start as any."

Shortly thereafter Hagrid gave him a train ticket for platform nine and three-quarters, telling him to be there on September first. Then Hagrid gave him the shoe Portkey back to Monster Island, telling him that he could use it to go back to London with.

It was a joyous Harry who returned to Monster Island and told all of his surrogate family about what had happened. Minilla listened with rapt attention, and Godzilla occasionally grunted and nodded. Mothra had seemed slightly uneasy when he mentioned his wand's "brother" and Godzilla had growled. Even Jet Jaguar had stopped signing for a moment.

"Yeah, Mr. Ollivander was really strange for a moment after that, it was enough for me to decide not to pass on that – oops."

In his excitement, Harry had almost blurted Ollivander's request, which he'd decided not to fulfill.

"Pass what on Harry?" his aunts prompted.

Well, there was no leaving it out of the story now.

Chuckling nervously, Harry explained, "We somehow got to talking about Monster Island before I got my wand, and both Mothra and Manda came up in conversation. He asked if I could get a scale or a hair from either or both of you just to see what properties they might have in a wand."

There was a pause in the discussion as everyone turned to Mothra to see what she would make of the request. Mothra made a complex trilling sound and gently flapped her magnificent wings, causing a pair of hairs to land in front of Harry.

The Shobijin translated for Harry, who could normally tell what kaiju meant, but Mothra had just used "words" Harry had never heard before.

"Mothra says that it has been many lifetimes since anyone last made such a request. She says that it is up to you and Manda if you wish to discuss it with him, but you may give these hairs to Mr. Ollivander. You should perhaps advise him though that wands made with these will not harm the innocent."

Harry nodded solemnly. He still wasn't sure if he thought of Mothra as a goddess or simply as a very wise kaiju, but he treated everything she said with utmost respect.

He coughed a said, "Hagrid told me I wasn't allowed to perform magic outside of school, but he also told me that I'm technically not on an island where that rule can be enforced, so who wants to see me do magic?"

Minilla made a number of excited noises, and Harry cast a bunch of easy, pretty spells well into the evening, only taking a break to learn a chilling charm when he realized that his poor, still nameless owl was suffering from the island's heat.

After that, he felt oddly tired and decided to simply go to sleep, this time not in his hut at all, but beside the red water lake, where he could see his father and brother snuggling up for the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're finally approaching first year. Are you excited? I am! I have so many ideas for the Hogwarts years and I can finally use them because all the plot I needed to go through to get there is almost over. I'm so ludicrously happy that I'm going to use an emoticon! :D
> 
> Before I forget, I know that some of you are wondering about the Snape book that popped up in the story, and might be caught on the hows, whys, and whens. My explanation for that is chaos theory. Just as the butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil may cause a tornado in Kansas, Jet Jaguar taking Harry to Monster Island set off a unpredictable, inherently nonsensical sequence of events that resulted in a group of Hogwarts graduates getting together and deciding to create and charm a book warning (non-Slytherin) students about Snape.


	8. Chapter 8

Harry kept Mothra's hairs in a satchel, and after about a day of thought, decided that Manda should have the chance to give Ollivander a definite answer either way, so he went to the serpentine kaiju's lake and rhythmically tapped the surface of the water, a signal he had worked out the monster to request his presence.

Slithering up from the depths, Manda greeted him far less dramatically this time.

"So, the young wizard is preparing to learn to use his powers. Why do you summon me, young Speaker? Your own kind ought to be able to teach you far better than I."

Harry launched into a condensed version of his trip to Diagon Alley, to provide context for his encounter with the old wand maker; Manda was not truly a part of the family, and would not be as interested, but he deserved to know the whole truth. After a few minutes, Harry got to the wand maker's request.

The guardian of Mu shifted one of his coils in response.

"Approach, young one. I shall grant this wand maker's request. I feel a loose scale on my belly; if you can find it you may take it."

Harry had long ago learned to look for even the smallest details in his environment, and that served him well in finding the small, loose scale on the serpent's underside. As Manda breathed in and out, one of his wet scales wobbled and shimmered in the light.

Harry plucked it off and said, "Thank you, oh eldest of serpents."

He wasn't sure why he had said that, but it prompted the four-legged snake to take a closer look at him.

"Ah, I see now. Perhaps I shall speak with Mosura about this… after all, your manners are much improved in comparison to our first encounter. As a reward, take this advice to the wand maker: use cherry wood with my scale. The process will be much harder, but the end result much greater as well."

Unnerved by how closely Manda was looking at him, Harry thanked him and quickly took his leave.

Time flew by, and the day soon came for Harry to board the Hogwarts Express. Harry, having very little to pack besides his school supplies, left bright and early after saying goodbye to his extended family so that he would have time to visit Diagon Alley first. Jet Jaguar had given him a map of London so Harry knew how to navigate the city, at least from the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron to the train station.

A boy in a robe carrying an owl and a suitcase was an odd sight even in a city as cosmopolitan as London, but as with any big city, it was full of enough weirdos that he was not noticed too much.

Harry kept his head down when he entered the wizarding pub to avoid the ruckus that his first visit had caused, and got to Ollivander's wand shop without incident.

"Mr. Potter, I'm surprised to see you so soon. I take it you have an answer from the creatures?"

Harry handed Ollivander the hairs and the scale, and passed on the messages from both Mothra and Manda. As Harry left, he paused long enough to hear the wand maker murmuring excitedly to himself as he inspected the new materials.

"Very interesting. If that is true, the hairs will have some very intriguing properties. Laurel perhaps, or mahogany would be good matches; I shall have to find high quality samples of both. And the scale… cherry wood. Yes, I can see how difficult that would be, but the potential is there…"

Harry took one last look in each shop after finding that he had overcompensated for the change in time zones, but didn't purchase anything apart from a cheap magical watch charmed to be waterproof, and soon left for King's Cross Station.

At first, he was confused when he arrived, since there seemed to be only platforms nine and ten, with nothing in between, but Harry had learned to reach out with all of his senses to better hide himself from photographers and predators on Monster Island, to listen and smell for things he could not immediately see, and at the moment those senses were telling him that one of those solid walls was not as solid as it looked.

After walking slowly between platforms, he realized that the extra noise and exotic smells were both coming from the barrier between platforms nine and ten, and he confidently walked through, trunk and owl intact, to see a steam engine called the Hogwarts express. He picked a compartment mostly at random and chose one that had a young girl with bushy hair that reminded him of the shrubbery he would hid in while playing hide-and-seek with Minilla, and a shy looking boy holding a toad in one hand.

Harry learned that their names were Neville Longbottom and Hermione Granger. Harry wasn't able to get a proper read on Neville since he wasn't talking much yet, but rapidly concluded that Hermione was a walking encyclopedia. At even the slightest of prompting she would provide – completely from memory – detailed explanations about Hogwarts, the four House system, and even a few spells. After Harry introduced himself as Harry Potter she was even able to tell him what the wizarding world thought about him. He thought it was a bit silly that people were afraid of a name, but then, that could be his kaiju upbringing showing; what was a man with a stick, even a magical one, in comparison to Godzilla's war stories about the likes of Gigan, Megalon, Hedorah, Mechagodzilla, and King Ghidorah?

It was Harry's stories about growing up on Monster Island that got Neville to start opening up, if only out of sheer disbelief. The idea of creatures that could dwarf dragons was something that he could not wrap his head around, even after Hermione vouched for Harry's honesty. She hadn't done much research into kaiju, apparently since the loud roars scared her and the death tolls of their rampages saddened her, but she was tangentially aware of their existence.

Harry engaged in a game of quid pro quo with Neville, giving a bit of his background in exchange for more of Neville's, and a picture emerged of a shy boy with a very strict grandmother and an environment of high expectations. Apparently for quite some time his relatives had feared that he was a squib, essentially a wizard-born muggle, the opposite of Hermione. The girl empathized, quietly explaining that while she could not relate to the borderline hostility of family, she had few friends in muggle school because people made fun of her for being bookish.

The emotions running high in the room were making it seem like a therapy session, and in solidarity Harry explained that life on Monster Island, while he wouldn't trade it for anything, could sometimes be lonely. As the only wizard in the village, the people looked at him oddly sometimes, and kaiju could not play with him or hold him simply due to the vast differences in size and strength. And many kaiju, even Manda, were poor conversationalists.

"Who is Manda?"

"I heard something about that in my old history lessons; isn't that the guardian of Mu?"

Harry nodded, and explained that for some reason he could talk to the serpent kaiju, but not any of the others.

"You might not want to share that Harry. Talking to snakes, Parseltongue, is seen as a dark art."

"I don't want to sound biased against any of the houses, but Slytherin has a dark reputation and its founder, Salazar Slytherin, was known as 'Serpent Tongue' for his ability."

Harry shrugged. "I don't think of that many things as being inherently bad, especially not something as simple as being able to talk to an animal, but I'll keep it to myself. But speaking of houses…"

From there the conversation shifted to which house they thought that they would be in. Hermione hoped that she would be in Gryffindor because she looked up to Dumbledore who had also been in that house, and Neville also hoped for Gryffindor, but guessed that he might be a Hufflepuff which he said would not be bad.

Harry, knowing nothing else but the house's reputation, also opted to hope for Gryffindor.

Out of topics to discuss, the trio sank into a companionable silence, only to be interrupted by the arrival of a pale boy and what looked to be a pair of large bodyguards. Harry wasn't intimidated. With combat training from Jet Jaguar and Godzilla he could see at least a dozen ways to subdue all three of them even if he couldn't burn them to ash. Harry had his first brush with a fairly transparent attempt at manipulation when the boy – named Draco Malfoy – referred to Hermione and Neville as the "wrong sort" with all the subtlety of an atomic blast and offered to introduce him to the "right people."

Harry's response does not bear repeating, but he made clear to the pale boy that he would choose his own friends and decide for himself who were the right and wrong sort of people, and that he wanted nothing to do with anyone who wore such prejudices on their sleeve. Draco and company stormed out, and Neville and Hermione, both lacking self-esteem, looked at Harry with something akin to awe at his confidence and loyalty.

The rest of the train ride passed without incident, except for Harry briefly having use his tracking skills to find Trevor ("He's under your chair Neville").

When the train stopped the trio got into a boat together. Hermione mentioned that _Hogwarts: a History_ said that the lake had a giant squid living in it, along with merpeople, and Harry immediately stared over the side in hopes of making friends with it, already growing homesick for the presence of colossal creatures.

Hogwarts was indeed an impressive sight, far from the decrepit ruin that Jet Jaguar had seen, Harry could see that the castle was weathered but pristine.

Once out of the boats, the first years followed Hagrid until they arrived at the top of the stairs. Harry was surprised, but not spooked when the ghosts appeared, unlike nearly everyone else.

Silence fell when Professor McGonagall arrived. She impressed Harry, because she had that aura demanding respect that he had thought only kaiju could possess. She told them that they would enter the Great Hall and then wait for their names to be called in order to be sorted.

Silence fell over the hall as the professor placed a tattered hat on a stool in front of the student body.

And then the hat burst into song.

_Oh you may not think I'm pretty,_   
_But don't judge on what you see,_   
_I'll eat myself if you can find_   
_A smarter hat than me._

_You can keep your bowlers black,_   
_Your top hats sleek and tall,_   
_For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat_   
_And I can cap them all._

_There's nothing hidden in your head_   
_The Sorting Hat can't see,_   
_So try me on and I will tell you_   
_Where you ought to be._

_You might belong in Gryffindor,_   
_Where dwell the brave at heart,_   
_Their daring, nerve, and chivalry_   
_Set Gryffindors apart;_

_You might belong in Hufflepuff,_   
_Where they are just and loyal,_   
_Those patient Hufflepuffs are true_   
_And unafraid of toil;_

_Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,_   
_if you've a ready mind,_   
_Where those of wit and learning,_   
_Will always find their kind;_

_Or perhaps in Slytherin_   
_You'll make your real friends,_   
_Those cunning folks use any means_   
_To achieve their ends._

_So put me on! Don't be afraid!_   
_And don't get in a flap!_   
_You're in safe hands (though I have none)_   
_For I'm a Thinking Cap!_

The assembled students applauded, but Harry was just able to hear someone angrily yell, "I'll kill Fred! He kept going on about wrestling a troll!" Now it was Harry's turn to be upset. Partly raised by kaiju, Harry appreciated the idea of a good fight, and now he wanted to wrestle a troll into submission.

The sorting proceeded smoothly and easily. Hermione was the first of their trio to be called, and after a few moments the Hat shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!" Harry found that intriguing. The hat either took preference into account or it genuinely thought Hermione was even braver than she was intelligent, and based on Harry's impression of her that would be quite impressive.

Neville followed when his name was called, and on hearing the Hat shout "GRYFFINDOR!" the boy was so excited he almost ran to the Gryffindor table with it still on his head. Harry thought nothing ill of Neville, but he had silently agreed that the boy sounded more like a Hufflepuff. Perhaps the Hat was all about a person's potential.

Draco Malfoy had scarcely had it on his head before it screamed "SLYTHERIN!" giving Harry another reason to avoid the house; he did not want to share a dormitory with such an arrogant bigot for the next seven years.

Finally, Harry heard the professor call his name. Harry walked calmly to the stool, paying no mind to the whispers that followed him. When he placed the Sorting Hat on his head, he got quite the surprise when it started talking to him.

"My, my, you've lead an interesting life haven't you? Regardless, this seems to be rather straightforward. You are clever in your own way, but not a Ravenclaw at heart, and while Salazar would covet someone like you, you don't possess the ambition for Slytherin house, even if it would make you great. You would fight to the death for anyone who earned your loyalty, but the one trait that outshines all others is your courage. Yes, I think you'd better be GRYFFINDOR!"

The last word was shouted loud enough for the entire hall to hear, and started an enormous round of applause from the Gryffindors, including chants of "We got Potter!" Harry sat down next to Neville and Hermione and waited patiently for the sorting to finish and the feast to start.

After the last student was sent to Slytherin, Dumbledore made an announcement that no one laughed at, and was thus presumably serious: no one was to enter the third floor corridor unless they wished to die a horrible death. He then finished with a few words: "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"

And then the feast appeared and Harry put the announcement out of his he loved the food he could get on Monster Island there was very little variety, so, (answering as few questions as he could get away with) he gorged himself, so much so that his table manners were _almost_ as bad as Ron Weasley's.

He felt a sudden pain in his scar, almost enough to make him flinch and drop his utensils. It was possible that someone had hexed him, but he doubted that anyone would disrupt such a magnificent feast just for that, so instead he look around for any sign of what might have happened… but the only thing even slightly noteworthy was that Professor Quirrell was not eating. Instead, his back was turned towards Harry and he was speaking to a man in black with greasy hair who seemed to be glaring at the Gryffindor table and Harry himself.

"Excuse me, but who's the man speaking to Professor Quirrell?"

"Hm?" Replied a red haired prefect, "Oh, that's Professor Snape, the potions master. You'll want to watch out for him. Everyone says he's biased towards Slytherin and that he really wants the defense position."

Harry made note of that, and decided that it might be time to open that extra book. The one about the worst professor ever…


	9. Chapter 9

The next day classes began, but not every class was every day. Since Hogwarts was the first time in Harry's life that he'd had a formal education it was something of a struggle to adjust to scheduled periods of long silence and structured lectures, but he adapted. Adaptation was the single most important lesson from the kaiju on Monster Island, and Harry had learned it well.

Professor McGonagall's class, transfiguration, was intriguing but difficult. Her eye catching demonstrations – changing herself from a cat to a woman as class started, and then turning her desk into a pig and back again – were more than enough to make just about everyone focus, especially in combination with her formidable aura of authority.

Their first lesson was to transfigure a match into a needle. Harry struggled because his inner pyromaniac (he blamed watching Godzilla use the atomic breath – it was just so impressive!) thought that the match was inherently better, since it could light on fire. He lost some points on his first try, because while it looked like a needle, it could still catch fire; worse still, it was unsafe, since it could catch fire all over.

The theoretical homework was a pain, but with Hermione helping him (but not doing the work for him as she insisted) Harry soon got it right, giving him some much needed to time peruse his extra book, Surviving Snape.

The book painted a deeply unpleasant portrait of the professor, one Harry was having a much easier time believing after having just seen the man. It said that he was biased against all houses but Slytherin, and that there was no way to truly avoid losing points for Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, or especially Gryffindors, there were ways to avoid excessive losses.

First, it said that Snape really hated teaching, and simply put directions on a blackboard, so you ought to be certain to read the books beforehand if you lacked an intuitive understanding of ingredients, their properties, their interactions, and general safety procedures.

Second, it said to get used to name-calling and put-downs if you weren't in Slytherin house. It listed some of his standard insults, including his apparently rehearsed dunderhead speech, calling non-Slytherins who volunteered to eagerly know-it-alls, and his fondness for picking out seemingly random, arbitrary students to suggest that they would not pass his class no matter what.

Third, it gave a word of caution. Apparently, for reasons the authors had never been able to find rhyme or reason for, Snape would occasionally decide that there was a student that he simply despised. The authors emphasized that there was no way to prevent him from taking points from you in this case, but there were a handful of ways to minimize it.

First, he had a standard set of questions he asked first-years he hated, and the authors gave the questions and answers in order. Adding powdered root of ashphodel to an infusion of wormwood would create a Draught of Living Death. Bezoars were found in the stomachs of goats and nullified the effects of many poisons (here the book placed an asterisk and cautioned its readers to say "many" not "most." Snape's knowledge of poisons was evidently encyclopedic and if anyone answered "most" he would rattle off a list of poisons that bezoars could not counter). Finally, wolfsbane and monkshood were the same plant, and if a reader wanted to politely thumb their nose at Snape while answering, they could point out that the plant was also known as aconite.

The only other way for someone he hated to avoid losing points was to simply keep their head down, take rapid notes if he said anything useful (rare, but it occasionally happened), and follow each instruction to the letter.

Putting the book away, Harry set off to find the next class amid the ever changing and winding stairways and passages.

Harry enjoyed Professor Flitwick's class, charms, immensely. True, the professor had fallen out of his seat when he reached Harry's name on the roll sheet, but the class was eminently practical, something that Harry appreciated, not to mention that Flitwick's exuberance was seemingly contagious (Harry considered asking if that in itself was a charm, but decided it was best not to).

History was utterly worthless, at least as taught by Professor Binns. The ghost was quite possibly the most boring shade in existence; Harry did not know how one could make war and battle seem so boring, but the spirit had managed to do so spectacularly. Only Hermione seemed unaffected by his monotonous droning.

He'd actually been looking forward to defense against the dark arts, despite knowing about Professor Quirrell's bad stutter, but unfortunately the man lived down far past even Harry's worst expectations. The man was simply to afraid to let them do anything, and the intense and overpowering smell of garlic made Harry's head hurt.

Finally, the time came to go to potions class with Professor Snape. Harry braced himself and kept in mind the temper controlling exercises the Shobijin had taught him. Godzilla taught him that rage had a purpose and that it could be used, but it was Mothra and her priestesses that taught him that rage also had a place – one could not and should not be angry all the time.

Harry filed in and sat with Neville and the pair of them sat as close to Hermione as possible. It seemed that the professor had yet to arrive, so Harry very quietly asked Neville, "Did you get the extra book? The one that was hidden in a corner of Flourish and Blotts'?"

A panicked looking Neville replied, "No, which one was that?"

"Don't worry, I'll tell you after class."

A moment later Snape swept into the room, robes billowing behind him. Since the dungeon had no wind, Harry briefly grossed himself out wondering if it was simply a sign that the professor had bad gas.

The professor went down the list of students, but apart from a very subtle narrowing of his eyes at Neville's name did not stop until he reached Harry's.

"Mr. Potter. Our new celebrity."

Harry sighed inwardly and steeled himself. Murdering a professor, even if three quarters of the school would appreciate it, was not an option.

Snape reached the end of the list and then launched into the exact speech quoted verbatim in Harry's book. Harry did his best to seem interested. Naturally, when he reached the end he implied that neither Harry nor Neville would pass. Finally, he bombarded Harry with the three questions he held in reserve for those whom he loathed, ignoring Hermione's raised hand as if she were invisible.

Harry answered with what the book had taught him, including the slight bonus at the end.

Snape's glare managed to intensify.

"Ten points from Gryffindor for being an insufferable know-it-all Potter. You cannot rely on memorization here."

Rage was overtaking his amusement that the book told him precisely the opposite. Harry took a slow, deep breath. He was not sure if he was meditating or building towards a breath of fire.

Eventually the class ended, but with an excessively long parchment essay assigned for homework. After rushing out of the dungeons like he was trying to escape one of Godzilla's rampages, Neville asked him, "What did you mean extra book?"

Hermione walked up at that moment as well, adding on, "I heard you say that. What extra book are you talking about? I looked all over the store for everything."

"Let's get back to the Gryffindor common room first," Harry replied. "I don't feel comfortable discussing it so close to the dungeons."

They had scarcely passed through the Fat Lady's portrait when Hermione got in front of her friend.

"Please explain now Harry," her best impersonation of Professor McGonagall's stern look was quite impressive, all the more so because it was not deliberate.

Harry pulled his copy of Surviving Snape out of his bag. Neville and Hermione's reactions perfectly illustrated the difference between gasps of awe and horror.

Before either of them could speak, Harry explained, "I found an entire shelf of these tucked in a corner of the bookstore in Diagon Alley. The book has a note inside saying that it's charmed to look like a children's book to everyone over seventeen years old. It was a lifesaver just now."

"Harry–"

"Harry, you've got to let me borrow that for a bit. I know he went after you today, but I just know that next time it's going to be me."

"Neville… are you scared of him?"

"Harry…"

"You mean you're not?"

"Harry!"

"Yes, Hermione?"

"Can't you see how disrespectful that book is Harry? You should get rid of it, especially if its charmed so that the professors can't see it."

"Hold on one moment Neville," Harry turned to his other friend. "Hermione, I will make you a deal. If you can read the first ten pages of this book and then explain to me a way in which it does not describe the class we just had, I will throw it into the fire right now."

Neville made a sound like a wounded animal and Hermione mulled it over for moment before agreeing. Harry handed it over.

"Harry how could you do that to me?"

Harry leaned closer to Neville and whispered, "Trust me on this. You'll get that book, I promise."

The two boys watched Hermione read it quickly, her face transitioning from outraged to incredulous to sad to defeated in the span of just a few minutes.

"So," Harry couldn't help but smirk, "What's the difference?"

Hermione threw the book at him and walked away, and Harry gladly gave it to Neville.

The next day was their broom-flying class. Harry would have preferred it if there was a class to learn to fly under his own power, but when he'd asked an older student (after the shock of speaking to Harry Potter wore off) they told him that it was theoretically impossible for even the most powerful wizards to fly unassisted.

Madam Hooch seemed to be a very stern woman, much like Professor McGonagall, and told them all that the first task was to get their brooms into their hands without simply bending over and picking them up.

However, the task as easy in theory; they merely had to hold their hand over the broom and say "Up!"

Harry's responded immediately, surprising him. It had leapt into his hand like an eager puppy.

For all of Draco's early morning boasts about being a superb flyer who could outrun muggle helicopters (despite that being impossible and even if true a severe violation of the Statute of Secrecy), his broom did nothing but hover slightly and roll in midair.

Hermione, in this one case, seemed to be among the worst in class. Her broom would not respond to her.

Neville got the worst of the brooms though. His at first did not respond, then flew up and hit him in the face. It either knocked him out or badly dazed him, because he then fell onto it and started rising.

Harry acted on instinct and hopped onto his own broom and tried to keep his friend down so the potential fall wouldn't hurt him anymore. Madam Hooch eventually got onto a functioning broom and guided him down.

"Ten points from Gryffindor for flying without my permission… and twenty points to Gryffindor for helping a fellow student in need."

The teacher sent the dizzy but conscious Neville to the hospital wing and the rest of the lesson passed without incident because the Remembrall he received that morning stayed in his pocket.

September and October flew by, and Harry was really coming to enjoy Hogwarts. The staring had mostly dropped to a minimum, and he could always ignore it by striking a conversation with Neville, Hermione, or both. Most of the classes (history, defense, and especially potions excluded) were interesting, and for the most part Harry could see why his birth parents would have chosen to come here.

Then Halloween came.

Harry had already been feeling somber, wondering what might have been if his parents had lived, and then Ron Weasley made Hermione cry just for correcting him during charms. Harry discretely cast a curse at him that sent him off the hospital wing puking slugs, and then he set out to look for her, occasionally asking a portrait if they had seen her. He wasn't sure what he would say, but he could at least offer a shoulder to cry on if nothing else.

Harry mused that maybe he shouldn't have told Neville to go and enjoy the feast; a second set of eyes and ears would really help.

Finally, one portrait said that Hermione had been in one of the girl's bathrooms all day, so Harry set off.

That was when he heard the scream. He ran towards the sound and found himself at the destroyed entrance of the girls' loo. Hermione was backed into a corner with a troll advancing on her. Though the troll's stench brought tears to his eyes, he refused to let that stop him.

Recalling all that Godzilla and Jet Jaguar had taught him, he roared at the troll, which turned and looked at him, deeply confused. Harry roared again, a sound no human was meant to make, but enhanced by magic into something terrifying.

Fortunately the troll stopped advancing on Hermione. Unfortunately, that was because it was now advancing on him. Harry tried to breathe fire, but all that came out of his mouth was a blue ring of sparks and smoke that irritated the troll's eyes and made it angrier.

Harry had long ago learned the importance of dodging and now his reflexes were put to the ultimate test as he avoided each swing of the troll's club, at one point leaping over a wide swing as if playing the world's deadliest game of jump-rope.

He punched it in the knee.

It didn't work, and now his hand stank of troll.

He kicked it in the other knee, and that still got no reaction.

He cast every curse, hex, jinx, and offensive spell he'd been able to learn from Vindictus Viridian's book, all to no avail. What would it take to bring this thing down?

Then he had an idea that would prove to be either disastrous or brilliant. The next time the troll slammed its club onto the ground, Harry jumped onto the club and then ran up both the weapon and the arm holding it onto its shoulder. The troll looked at him in confusion until he jammed his wand right up its nose and concentrated. A troll's brain was about the size of a teacup, so it ought to work.

True enough, a moment later the beast collapsed like a building when kaiju were on the warpath, and a deeply distressed mouse crawled out of the troll's nose.

The professor's arrived to see Hermione clutching Harry like a life preserver in an ocean storm as he tried to sooth her with one hand and wash off the other. Harry and Hermione told most of the truth of what had happened; Hermione had run off crying after being insulted, and Harry had gone looking for her instead of joining the feast. When he saw the troll going after her, he tried to distract it. If Hermione noticed that Harry deliberately left out his ability to breathe fire, she did not correct him.

In the end Professor McGonagall removed twenty points for attacking a troll, but added forty for a combination of courage and creative use of transfiguration.

Harry wrote his first letter home that evening, being able to honestly tell both the Shobijin and Jet Jaguar that he had not gone looking for trouble, but also able to tell Godzilla that he had vanquished his first foe. After a moment of thought, he also summed up what the rest of his time at Hogwarts was like. Even if no one else wanted to hear it, it would entertain Minilla.


	10. Chapter 10

The trio of friends felt lopsided and weird for a bit after the troll incident; Hermione seemed closer to Harry, but Neville seemed more distant.

Harry's direct approach soon found the cause while talking privately to Neville. It seemed that his friend had a bunch of mixed feelings that were confusing him. Neville was glad that Hermione was alive, but doubted that he would have been brave enough to face the troll, which in turn made him feel like a bad friend and caused him to doubt his status as a Gryffindor. He also felt awkward around Harry and Hermione for another reason, a reason that so seemed to embarrass him that Harry needed to almost scare him into revealing it: Neville diagnosed Hermione's extra closeness to Harry as the result of a crush on her hero, and felt like a third wheel whenever he was around the pair of them.

Harry did not know how to feel about all this, and certainly didn't know how to confront the issue. He wanted to reassure Neville that he would have been brave enough to face the troll, but having been raised among kaiju he knew that most humans responded to danger by running away and screaming. On the hand, he also didn't know how to deal with the thought that Hermione might be infatuated with him. He'd come to love her like a sister in the months since meeting her, and he wasn't sure how he felt about the prospect of becoming more.

The result was an awkward November, in which Harry reluctantly used his stealth skills to avoid both of his friends while he tried to think of how to solve the problem, exploring different floors in the hopes that one might have an option.

That was how Harry discovered the forbidden corridor. Not realizing where he was, he came upon a locked door and let himself in, only to find himself face to face to face to face with a three-headed puppy. Not scared in the least, Harry started talking to it in the language of kaiju, and unlike the owl all those months ago on Monster Island, the dog not only understood him, but spoke back.

As a puppy, the dog was not very articulate. It's first "words" to him were "My name is Fluffy, and you shall not pass."

"Well, I don't want to pass. I just wanted to see what was in here. Everybody was told to avoid this place."

"Oh. You're okay then. Happy Friendly Man doesn't visit so much now, and I'm lonely. Will you pet me?"

And so Harry snuggled with Fluffy and scratched his belly for a bit and promised to come back soon. Fluffy didn't know what he was guarding, only that Hagrid (or in his words "Happy Friendly Man") told him to stay put. He also told Harry that two people had tried to get past him so far: a "slimy man" and a "stinky man." Harry guessed that that meant Snape and Quirrell, but what could they be after? He figured he would ask Hagrid some other time, after he resolved his issues with his friends.

So Harry continued his wanderings over the next week, and he eventually found himself on the seventh floor, pacing beside a picture of crazy man trying to teach trolls ballet, when a door appeared beside him. He fearlessly entered and found a book on a plinth.

The book, entitled _Relationships – A Wizard's Guide_ , had chapters about helping friends with their problems, turning friends into lovers without magic, and letting people down easy. It was exactly what he needed… but he found it really odd that just what he needed would be mounted prominently in a room that suddenly appeared.

Still, Harry chalked it up to magic and left. He even left the book behind because he got what he needed from it and it may be there to help others.

At the next Quidditch game (or maybe it was the first of the season, Harry hadn't kept track) Harry took his friends aside and prefaced everything with an apology for avoiding them. What followed was a long, emotionally draining conversation.

Harry went first explaining that things had seemed to him like the dynamics in their friendships were changing, leaving unsaid the idea that it might not be for the better, and that he wanted things to be the way they were before the troll. Having grown up in an emotionally healthy environment (if a very strange one) Harry was able to express the fact that he'd grown to love Neville and Hermione like the human siblings he had never had, and wanted to move past whatever weirdness was messing with their friendship.

Neville looked distinctly uncomfortable, and Hermione looked slightly sad and rather embarrassed, and Harry feared that he'd misinterpreted the book's advice and made things worse, but eventually Neville found his courage and spoke up.

He explained the things that he had told Harry privately, about his guilt about not being there for Hermione and wondering about his worth as a Gryffindor. Hermione gave him a hug at that point and started her own explanation.

She began by telling Neville that she did not blame him for not being there, and that she was supposed to be a Gryffindor but had still been scared witless. She also explained that while she'd had a tiny crush on Harry after the incident, enough time had passed that she realized it was less love than it was a feeling of safety mixed with admiration of his courage, something that brought a smile to Harry's face.

It ended with a group hug and a walk to the Quidditch game, which had only just started, as Harry told his renewed friends about his new friend Fluffy…

Time passed easily and quickly after that, although that is not to say that it was always smooth sailing. Neville still struggled with his spellwork, even with Harry and Hermione's help, and Draco kept trying to get under his skin, but like any good hunter Harry recognized bait when he saw it, and was smart enough not to take it.

The only other thing that really persistently irked him so far was how difficult it seemed to be to make friends between houses. The Slytherins seemed to follow Malfoy's lead, though for what reason Harry couldn't fathom. Gryffindor and Ravenclaw rarely had classes together (at least in first year, it was possible that that changed in later years), but ought to be able to interact at least in the halls; both house's common rooms were in towers, so there was theoretically a place between both to meet. Lastly, Harry only really interacted with Hufflepuffs during herbology, and while they seemed nice enough they also seemed hesitant to make friends outside their house for some reason.

Harry's fame didn't help him here. While the stares fell to a minimum if he kept to himself, if he tried to interact with someone they became starstruck all over again and asked truly ridiculous questions. Did he really live in a castle guarded by tame dragons? Had he really beaten an army of pitchfork and torch wielding muggles with an enchanted spoon? Were the halls beneath his mansion really filled with treasure? Was it true that he defeated a banshee with a well aimed pacifier?

Apparently all of these false beliefs came from children's stories written about him, despite him only being a baby when he "defeated" Voldemort. Harry wanted to be among peers; it was the entire reason he left Monster Island in the first place. Despite this, it seemed that circumstances would force him to maintain a small group of close friends. He didn't mind this, it was just while that growing up among the Infant Islanders in their village he'd gotten used to being part of a crowd.

Things got a little lonelier around Christmas as well, since both Neville and Hermione left the castle to spend time with their families. Monster Island didn't really have Christmas for multiple reasons, so at first Harry didn't understand the big deal, but after Hermione explained it as a time for giving gifts and appreciating family, Harry understood. At least the Weasley twins were around. It had been hysterical to see them casting snowballs at the back of Professor Quirrell's turban. He'd been unable to stop himself from laughing out loud at that, although a sudden pain in his scar stopped him cold. He wondered about how that might have happened, but his trail of thought was cut off when another professor came along to punish the twins. At that point he decided to leave as discretely as he could, all pain forgotten.

Still, waking up on Christmas morning virtually alone in the dorm was a strange feeling after growing used to the sounds of Neville, Dean, Seamus, and Ron all blundering about half-asleep. Ron was still around, but Harry didn't get along so well with him. Any time that Ron and Hermione were near each other they seemed to fight, and Harry couldn't and didn't blame Hermione for it.

Starting to upset himself with his thoughts, Harry got up and found a number of gifts beside his bed. Neville (no doubt with some difficulty) had managed to navigate muggle shopping to get him a so-called dinosaur plant, which would never truly die and would keep coming back if it was watered. Harry was touched at the salute to Godzilla, even if Neville still expressed the odd doubt that he existed. Hermione got him some treacle tart, his favorite dessert since coming to Hogwarts. And Hagrid had sent him a rough, hand-carved, wooden flute; Harry didn't know how to play the flute, but then he remembered that he hadn't made the time to visit Hagrid very much, so the man had been flying blind. He resolved to fix that very soon.

But there was another gift, an envelope with no indication of who sent it. A note fell out, along with a silvery cloak.

The note read, "Your father left this in my possession before he died. It is time it was returned to you. Use it well."

No name, no signature, no information whatsoever. Jet Jaguar would probably want to perform all sorts of tests on it before deeming it safe. But Harry was fearless and he pushed his arm through the sleeve–

–And very nearly had a heart attack on finding that he could no longer see it. He yanked his arm back out, and it was fine. Intrigued, he put his arm back in and wiggled his fingers. He could still feel everything that he could not see, so nothing bad was happening.

Harry was startled, not stupid. As more of his body was covered by the cloak and more of it disappeared, he realized that he was wearing some kind of invisibility cloak.

It was a magnificent gift, and the fact that it had belonged to his father made it that much more precious to him, but Harry knew how to stalk prey, and while the cloak would be invaluable for that, he could not fathom what else he would use it for. He wasn't the type to sneak around at night, nor was he a coward who struck his enemies from the shadows. However, he knew that he did have enemies in the wizarding world, and even he could admit that defeating the troll had been mostly luck. He decided to carry the cloak folded up in a pocket just in case.

A few days after Christmas all the students who'd left had come back, including Neville and Hermione. Harry had almost immediately pulled them aside to thank them for their gifts, and to apologize from the bottom of his heart for not getting them anything because he hadn't even known what Christmas entailed, and then showed him the mysterious extra gift.

"And this belonged to your dad?" Neville asked.

"It did according to the note that came with it," Harry replied, wondering why his friend might ask.

"It's just that growing up in an old family you start to hear about other family's heirlooms and artifacts, and it's very uncommon for an invisibility cloak to be handed down because the charms wear off and holes get punched and eaten in them."

"Maybe Harry's dad bought a really well enchanted one, or he bought it not long before, er…" Hermione trailed off, realizing what she was bringing up.

Harry gave her a little hug to reassure her that he wasn't offended, and Neville replied, "I guess those are possible. I just thought it was odd. I'm really happy for you Harry."

"Thanks Neville. Oh, before I forget, I'm going down to visit Hagrid later to thank him for this flute. Do you two want to come?"

Not long afterwards the trio had made the trek down towards Hagrid's hut and knocked on his door.

Very loud barking came from inside, slightly startling Neville. Harry was unaffected, both because he'd met the larger sounding Fluffy and because he'd grown up listening to the roars and rumbles of kaiju.

"Back Fang, back, I need teh see who's at the door," the door opened only a crack, as if Hagrid were nervous for some reason, but on seeing the three of them he beamed and flung it wide, "Harry, and yeh brought friends, come in come in, let me get yeh some tea."

Though Hagrid's rock cakes were some of the toughest things Harry had ever eaten, the tea was good and the conversation was better. The trio shared how their years had been so far, and Hagrid shared some of his fonder memories from the days when Harry's parents had been at school. It looked for a moment like he was about to share stories about Neville's parents too, but there was a not-so-subtle exchange of glances between the giant and the boy, and he moved on to another subject. Harry and Hermione decided not to pry; their friend would tell them when he was comfortable enough.

The discussion lasted into the evening, past the point where they probably should have been in the castle, but as the hour grew later, Hagrid started glancing more and more at his fireplace. Finally, Harry and his friends looked too, and were both shocked at what they saw and that they hadn't seen it before.

"Hagrid," Hermione exclaimed, "is that a dragon egg?"

"I hope not," Neville gulped, "ignoring that it would be illegal, dragons breathe fire, and this house is made of wood."

Hagrid nervously started trying to explain himself, "Well, I might've gone out for a drink or two, and this stranger came up and asked if I might be interested in a game o' cards. I wasn't really, but then 'e held out this egg, and I couldn't resist. And would yeh believe that part way through the game he started 'avin' doubts about me ability to handle a dragon, so I told him about Fluffy and how easy it was ter handle 'im if yeh only played music."

"Wait, you told some stranger about Fluffy, even though he's guarding something really important?" for the first time Harry got a little upset with Hagrid, not because of whatever Fluffy was guarding, but because this person might be a danger to the puppy themselves.

"'Old on, how do you know abou' Fluffy?"

Neville and Hermione both looked to Harry, and he replied, "I blundered into the room by accident and talked to him. He's lonely and wishes you'd visit more."

Hagrid moaned at the thought of his beloved pet being lonely, "I want teh, really I do, bu' I lent him to Dumbledore to help protect Mr. Flamel's– I mean–"

"Hold on, Flamel?" Neville asked, "As in, Nicholas Flamel the only alchemist to ever make a Philosopher's Stone?"

Hagrid looked like he was about to deny it, but a sudden cracking noise interrupted him, causing him to run to the fireplace. Harry realized what was going on and cleared the table for him.

Hagrid came back to immediately lay the egg on the table. It wobbled a few more times, and more cracking sounds were heard, until finally the egg split open and a fully formed but tiny dragon emerged, curled up and looking for all the world like a damp black umbrella. It unfurled and then let out the tiniest roar of victory Harry had ever heard at its triumph over the eggshell.

"Isn't 'e adorable!"

Neville and Hermione looked aghast at Hagrid's statement.

"Yes he is," Harry paused and sniffed the air, "although I think he smells more like a she to be honest."

Neville and Hermione looked even more aghast at their friend.

"Really? I was gonna name 'im Norbert the Norwegian Ridgeback, but I guess she's Norberta now." The hatchling belched a bit of flame. "Oh look she's showing off for mummy!"

Harry suddenly heard a noise and looked to the window, and he saw Draco Malfoy peering in before setting off for the castle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, have this cliffhanger to hold you over until chapter 11.
> 
> So, what was with all that awkwardness in the early part of the chapter? Well, little changes in the past can cause big changes in the future. In the canon timeline Harry, Ron, and Hermione became a trio because of the troll incident. In my story Harry, Neville, and Hermione were already a trio from making friends on the train, but Neville wasn't there for the troll incident, so instead of a dynamic being created, an existing dynamic was thrown off, and Harry had to spend nearly a month angsting about how to fix it.
> 
> And I know that Harry talks to snakes, not dogs, but I just feel that a three-headed dog would speak something close to kaiju for some reason, mainly because I couldn't resist the line "My name is Fluffy, and you shall not pass."


	11. Chapter 11

Harry sighed.

"Well, I guess I have to kill him now. I tried to ignore him, but if he's going to raise trouble like this–"

"HARRY!" Three voices yelled in unison, Neville, Hermione, and Hagrid all looking at him in horror, and even Norberta staring at him with wide eyes to mimic Hagrid.

"Er… it was a joke?" He attempted to pass it off. Whether they believed it or not, they moved on.

"Oh, Hagrid, you're going to be in so much trouble. The only way out is if you give it up."

"But give it up to who or where Hermione, and when?" Neville asked, "Malfoy's on his way to get a professor right now, it isn't like he's going to give us a day or so to plan."

Harry had a sudden idea and said, "Maybe you don't have to at all," and before any of them could say a word Harry pulled the invisibility cloak out of his pocket.

"We don't have to hurt anyone or make Hagrid give up Norberta. We just have to step outside and hide her under the cloak until Malfoy and whichever professors he brings are gone."

"But what if she burns the cloak?" Hermione asked. "Even ignoring how dangerous that would be for us, everyone would notice a floating flame."

Neville made an affirmative sound, backing Hermione up on this, and Hagrid looked like he was about to despair.

Harry walked up to Norberta and reached for her. She snapped once at his finger but he avoided her jaws and picked her up. Before she could do anything else he held her against his chest and started growling softly.

"Harry, what are you doing?" His friends looked terrified for him, but Hagrid understood and beamed.

"He's making her think he's another dragon, to soothe 'er, like singin' a lullaby."

"So, she won't breathe fire now?" Neville hesitantly asked.

"Unless she gets the hiccups," Hagrid honestly replied.

Hermione looked about to object again, but Harry briefly stopped growling to mouth, "Trust me."

The brainy girl sighed, "Alright," she took the cloak out of Harry's loose grip on it, "Neville, come on. We're not supposed to be out here either, so we need to disappear too."

Neville briefly looked about to object, but he glanced out the window and gasped, "Malfoy's back. He's bringing Snape, Professor McGonagall, and… is that Professor Dumbledore?"

Between being found out of bounds by two of the school's strictest professors and the headmaster, and huddling with his friends and a dragon, Neville found his courage and moved under the cloak.

Hagrid did his best to usher the invisible quartet out of his hut's back door to his garden.

Hagrid shut the door behind them and left them in the dark. The three of them considered moving to a window to look inside, but Neville pointed out that in the dark they might trip and drop the cloak, or worse, agitate the dragon, so they waited.

Harry couldn't see his watch – nor could he bring it to his face to look at for that matter – but as he rumbled and growled he counted. A minute or so later he heard a quiet conversation between the professors. McGonagall sounded annoyed at having being woken up, and Snape was defending Malfoy. Dumbledore seemed content to listen to them argue. A moment later, he heard Hagrid's front door open and then shut again.

The trio waited. Neville and Hermione both gave quiet, frightened gasps a few minutes later, as their now adjusted eyes could see Norberta's mouth opening wide… and then they sighed in relief as the hatchling only yawned.

Another few minutes later, they heard the door burst open, and Draco whining loudly, "Fifty points!? But I was telling the truth!"

"Hush Draco, that is enough," Snape's voice sounded icy but resigned.

"Enough indeed!" Professor McGonagall huffed. "A dragon egg! And trying to implicate your fellow students in such a lie. You are lucky that your Head of House and the Headmaster were able to talk me down from fifty points per person in your fabrication!"

Once the voices faded a bit, Hagrid let the trio back in.

"How's Norberta?"

Harry handed her back with a smile.

"She's sleeping like a baby, which means she's quiet now, but will probably be hungry in a couple of hours."

Hagrid chuckled. "Alrigh' you three, off yeh go. I told 'em that I kept yah late, but I also said that yeh're all in yeh're beds right now. Don't make me sound like a liar."

The trio set off, happy and wondering just how sleepy McGonagall had been that she was about to take off two hundred points from one student.

The next morning Harry and Hermione asked Neville about Nicholas Flamel, since he seemed to know so much.

Neville explained that in certain circles that his grandmother had to stay in for family politicking, the Flamels were always a topic of discussion because they had the one thing they all wanted: the Philosopher's Stone.

When they asked him to explain what that was, Neville elaborated that the stone was the crowning achievement of alchemy, that it could turn lesser metals into gold, and produce a substance called the Elixir of Life, which would extend the drinker's life indefinitely for as long as they continued to drink it.

Hermione was awed at the knowledge that creating such a thing would require. Harry was a bit less impressed.

When asked why, Harry explained that he had grown up without needing gold, and immortality simply did not appeal to him. However, his exact words were that he got by on the "bare necessities of life" which prompted Hermione to giggle and start humming happily for some reason, leaving Harry and Neville somewhat confused. Stranger still, Hermione's humming appeared to be contagious, and by the end of the day most of the muggleborn and muggle-raised students were humming the same tune, looking happy or nostalgic as they did so.

Later that week Harry introduced his friends to Fluffy, and after his obligatory "You shall not pass!" growl, the puppy was extremely happy to have visitors. The three-headed dog was in high spirits, saying that Hagrid had managed to visit him for a bit, telling him what a good boy he was and how good a job he was doing guarding the thing… which it really did not take much thought for the trio to conclude was the Philosopher's Stone. They were baffled as to why it would be at Hogwarts and not, say, Gringotts, but it was the only explanation that fit what they knew.

While Neville and Hermione weren't particularly surprised that Snape had tried to get past Fluffy, they were a bit shocked that Quirrell had the courage to make the attempt.

Still, it wasn't like there was anything that they could do about it, so they went about their business. They studied, they watched a couple of Quidditch games, and basically acted as normal students.

The other two were reluctant to go, but Harry made frequent visits to Hagrid and Norberta. The Norwegian ridgeback looked at Hagrid as her mother, but quickly came to regard Harry as something like a big brother.

Months passed, and Harry was happy at Hogwarts. He saw how his parents would have been happy to come here and he realized that he would be happy to return here. The only thing he found upsetting was how upset Hagrid was getting; apparently, something was killing the Forbidden Forest's unicorns, and according to centaurs, even drinking their blood. When Harry asked what could do such a thing, Hagrid said that he didn't know; nothing and no one with an ounce of sanity would drink unicorn blood because even though it could keep a person alive, it would be "a cursed life." It wasn't clear what that meant, only that the consequences were very severe.

Finally, after their exams (which left Hermione in a constant state of jittery paranoia that she had somehow failed), Dumbledore left. The trio realized that Snape and/or Quirrell would make their move today – Dumbledore was reputed to be the only person that Voldemort had ever feared, so of course a pair of greedy professors would wait until he was gone to make their move.

Harry was all for charging off to stop them immediately, with Neville reluctantly but loyally backing up him. Hermione was the one who said they should tell Professor McGonagall. Harry privately doubted that she would take them seriously, but he would support his friend, so they accompanied her to tell the professor what they knew.

McGonagall was… less than pleased. She did not take points or give detentions due to being so startled at what they knew, but she still told them in no uncertain terms that no one could steal the stone, and that they had better forget all about it.

In other words, the meeting was a total bust. Dumbledore was gone and the staff wouldn't help, which left only one option, an option that left Harry feeling giddy despite the severity of the situation: they would have to stop the bad guys themselves.

Slipping away from professors and through the crowds beneath the invisibility cloak, they made their way to the forbidden corridor.

Thankfully, nothing bad had happened to Fluffy. The giant puppy was curled up in a corner, listening to a harp that was playing by itself, leaving a trap door that he normally stood or laid on exposed.

"Well, only one way down!"

"Harry wait!"

Too late. Harry had jumped into the hole and landed on something squishy. His friends followed, and Neville started promptly freaking out.

"Devil's Snare! We have to burn it before it strangles us!"

A pair of _incendios_ later (technically three, but Neville's wand once more failed him) the mobile plant had released them and they went into the next room.

The room was filled with flying keys, obviously only one of which would open the door. While Hermione and Neville worried about how neither of them were good with brooms and Harry had not practiced before, Harry took a look at the door, backed up a bit, and dropkicked the door. There was a blue flash of magic he didn't notice, and it immediately flew open, no brooms needed, and no keys disturbed.

After they quit gawking, Neville and Hermione followed him into the next room, which appeared to be a colossal set of wizarding chess. That was problematic. None of them had much experience playing the game, and none of them were very good at chess in the first place. Still, they had to give it their all.

Harry had no doubts that once circumstances improved his friends would mock him for choosing to replace the queen. Hermione took the place of the bishop beside him, and Neville took the rook.

It was a close game, and they could all admit that it was mostly luck that pulled them through, but not without cost. Harry and Neville had needed to perform the lesser known chess move "Queen's castle," to avoid having either of them killed by the opposing chess pieces, but the result was that a shattered knight's shards flew at Neville.

He attempted to use _wingardium leviosa_ to move the shrapnel up and over his head, but the only result was that one chunk broke his wand and another struck his head and knocked him out. However, taking that knight was a tactical error that left the enemy king open to attack. Hermione's next move completely blocked off any of the king's next moves, and none of the other pieces were in a position to respond, so Harry's next move was checkmate.

Reluctantly, they left their friend and went to the next room.

The stench of troll, even worse than the one that had attacked the girls' loo, assaulted their nostrils as they entered, but the sight of the unconscious creature was definite proof that someone had come before them. Holding their noses against the olfactory assault, they entered the next room–

Only for the door behind them to burst into violet flame, and the door in front to do the same with black.

"Are we trapped here?" Harry was shocked. What were they supposed to do here?

"No we're not, look!" Hermione pulled a parchment off a table of several bottles and showed it to him.

_Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind,_   
_Two of us will help you, whichever you would find,_   
_One among us seven will let you move ahead,_   
_Another will transport the drinker back instead,_   
_Two among our number hold only nettle wine,_   
_Three of us are killers, waiting hidden in line._   
_Choose, unless you wish to stay here forevermore,_   
_To help you in your choice, we give you these clues four:_   
_First, however slyly the poison tries to hide_   
_You will always find some on nettle wine's left side;_   
_Second, different are those who stand at either end,_   
_But if you would move onward, neither is your friend;_   
_Third, as you see clearly, all are different size,_   
_Neither dwarf nor giant holds death in their insides;_   
_Fourth, the second left and the second on the right_   
_Are twins once you taste them, though different at first sight._

"Er… what?"

"It's a logic puzzle! Most wizards don't have any skill with logic at all, but really, the solution is…"

Here, Hermione went on to solve the puzzle using a sequence of logic that Harry could not fathom in the least, until Hermione presented him with a bottle and grabbed one for herself.

"That one," she gestured to the one in Harry's hand, "will take you forward – there's only enough for one person, and you're much braver than me."

"And the one you're holding?"

"This one will take me back. I need to get Neville to the hospital wing somehow."

Harry nodded, "Hermione, you're right, but as soon as you do that, there's one more thing you need to do." As she looked at him intently, Harry explained, "You need to go to the owlery and get my owl, a snowy one that I still haven't named, and send her after Dumbledore. He needs to get back here; I'm going to be outnumbered in there and might not make it back out."

Hermione gave him a bone-crushing hug, her eyes damp at the thought of her friend dying, but she controlled herself and quaffed her potion. Harry watched nervously, hoping that she was correct.

She shivered a bit. "Cold! Very cold! Good luck Harry, I'll get help!"

She ran through the purple flames unharmed and Harry let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. Turning towards the black fire, Harry walked towards it. Harry drank the last of the potion and waited, until suddenly he felt a chill spread from his gut to the rest of his body, and ran through.


	12. Chapter 12

Harry roared and immediately launched a volley of curses, hexes, jinxes, and even a few potentially inconvenient charms forward, not knowing or caring who was in front of him.

The figure turned around, revealing itself to be Professor Quirrell, who shockingly blocked, countered, or deflected each one. He fired his own spell, but Harry dodged the jet of light and took a quick moment to scan the room for Snape. Oddly, Quirrell seemed to be alone, but Harry had no time to think of that as he ducked under another attack and instinctively rolled to the side to avoid a follow up.

"Incendio!" Harry bellowed. He might not be able to breathe fire yet, but he could do the next best thing.

Quirrell seemed to be a bit surprised at Harry's use of a potentially lethal spell, but after a moment he unleashed a silent and devastating counter. Harry's flames seemed to collide with an invisible wall that pushed them back and forced them into an ever more narrow area, until they were forced into Harry's wand, making it explode in his hand.

Harry was so stunned that he wasn't able to avoid the next spell, which bound him where he stood no matter how much he struggled.

"Attempting to kill me Harry? You should know better. What would Dumbledore say if he knew?"

"Not stuttering anymore, 'Professor'? A real pity you're a better fighter than a teacher. Now where's Snape?"

"Snape? What would he be doing here?"

"Don't bother denying it, I know you both tried to get in here before!"

Quirrell threw back his head and laughed. "Oh, of course. Snape certainly seems the type doesn't he? And considering how much he takes his hatred of your father out on you, it's not surprising you'd think him dark. Really, Severus has been my best cover – who would suspect p-poor st-stuttering Professor Quirrell next to such a cartoonish caricature of a villain? Silly boy, Snape was trying to _stop_ me. It's just a pity that the gamekeeper's beast didn't kill him when it had the chance."

Those revelations threw Harry for a loop, but he wasn't dead yet, and that meant he needed to stall for time.

"So what's this about Quirrell? Gold, immortality, or do you think stealing the Philosopher's Stone out from under Dumbledore's nose will secure your place in the history books; if it's the last, I really ought to remind you that nobody can stay awake in Binns' class."

The evidently evil professor laughed again, "Such a funny child. It's not about any of those – it's about power! When I give my master the stone, he will reward me beyond my wildest dreams!"

"Your master?" This was news to Harry. What master?

"Oh, so you don't know everything do you Potter?"

"Let me speak for myself Quirrell," the new voice was sibilant, soft, and dangerous enough to send a chill down Harry's spine. Whatever was about to happen, Harry realized that it was now truly a life-or-death situation. He began concentrating on his inner power, the magic spark deep inside…

"Master, you are not strong enough yet!"

"I have strength enough for this…"

Quirrell turned around and began unwrapping his turban. Harry was confused. What could possibly be frightening about the back of the professor's head? Was it the essence of the headache-inducing garlic smell?

And then the turban fell away to reveal a face, and for the briefest of moments Harry could see in his mind's eye green light… and for the first time he could hear high, cold laughter alongside it.

"Hello Harry."

Harry could admit that for once, he was truly afraid, but he recalled something that Godzilla had taught him long ago, a lesson Mothra and her priestesses had disapproved of, but one that resonated in him right now.

Fear had only one true purpose, and that was to fuel one's wrath. Anything that made you truly afraid was a threat, either to yourself or to those whom you loved, and the only appropriate response to such threats was to destroy them. For that purpose you had to stoke the fires of rage, imagine them burning away your fear to leave only your purpose: to destroy the threat.

"And he is right Harry," Voldemort said, seeming to reply to Harry's own thoughts, "long ago even I feared death, but now look at me: I may be a mere shade, but I have conquered death, for I learned the only true lesson worth learning: there is no good or evil, only power and those too weak to seek it."

The attempt to corrupt his father's teachings drove Harry's anger to unparalleled heights, far higher than if he had simply continued trying to whip himself into a frenzy. He reached for the spark inside him, and instead found a violent inferno.

"You believe in power, Voldemort? Let me show you mine!"

Harry opened his mouth and azure flames erupted. With Quirrell's back turned, Voldemort's eyes widened and the possessed professor was unable to turn around in time to defend himself before being engulfed. With twin screams of pain and rage, both Quirrell and Voldemort were reduced to ash, and the ropes that bound Harry dissipated. He roared victoriously in emulation of his father, not seeing the malevolent shade rising from Quirrell's ashes. The spirit dove into him and Harry's roar turned into a scream of agony before he lost consciousness…

In many ways, Harry was Godzilla's son. One way in particular was that he was generally cranky when he woke up, but after the briefest moment of clarity imaginable, Harry felt a wave of pain roll over him and was unable to do so much as breathe without aching.

Unfortunately for Harry, he took after his colossal dad in another way: he powered through pain. He immediately opened his eyes and sat up. The room he was in was bright, the bed was relatively comfortable, and he was surrounded by curtains. Despite his headache, he recalled Neville describing the hospital wing, and that fit this place to a tee, so at least he wasn't dead. He looked to one side and saw a variety of snacks and get-well cards.

The curtains before him parted, and Harry had his first real encounter with Headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

"Ah, Harry, I see that you are finally awake. As you can see, your friends have been quite worried about you."

"Er… what happened? I mean, what happened, sir? My head hurts…"

"Quite understandable. Attempted, forceful possession is not something gentle. As to what happened, I believe that your mother's love for you protected you from Voldemort, as well as poor Professor Quirrell, who was little more than a shell once he willingly took Voldemort into his body."

"My mother's love?" Harry questioned, "What do you mean, Professor?"

"I can only surmise from the remains in front of the Mirror of Erised, that Voldemort commanded Professor Quirrell to grab you or touch you in some way, and that as a being so full of hatred, was unable to endure contact with a force as powerful as your mother's love."

"Er… Sir? What are you talking about? That isn't what happened in there at all. I know that my parents died protecting me, but it wasn't love that helped me down there. If anything, it was the power of fire."

Here Dumbledore seemed surprised and more than a bit disturbed. "Whatever do you mean my boy?"

"How do I explain it… it's not the sort of thing I'd ask anyone to take on faith. Oh, here we go!" Harry spotted a bag of Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans, opened it, took a sniff, and picked one out.

"This one smells like earwax, so I don't mind getting rid of it," Harry held it in the palm of his hand, away from the Headmaster, and reached into himself, finding that the inferno from before was more like a fireplace now. Easily, Harry let out a puff of blue flames, incinerating the bean. Dumbledore looked upset, but Harry was in a bit too much pain to notice and kept talking excitedly.

"I've been trying forever to breathe fire like my dad, and I was able to do it so well in the corridor. I feel so much stronger now that I can do that. I can't wait to show them all!"

"Harry… do you mean to say that you are not going to your relatives this summer?"

It was Harry's turn to look confused. "What do you mean, Headmaster? Of course I'm going back with my family, my uncle is going to be at the train station."

Dumbledore went right back to smiling and his eyes started twinkling. "Excellent. Now Harry, I must tell you now that what happened between you and Professor Quirrell in that chamber is an absolute secret… which of course means that it has become common knowledge in the school's rumor mill. On that note, I believe I should go, before Madam Pomfrey evicts me for bothering a patient."

Harry nodded, not quite sure how the headmaster could be so cavalier about secrets being out in the open, but decided now was the time to ask a couple of questions that had been gnawing at him.

"Professor, before you go may I ask you some things?"

"Of course you may, Harry, and I shall do my best to answer them truthfully."

"Okay, well down there Quirrell said that Snape–"

"Professor Snape, Harry."

"Right, him. Anyway, Quirrell said that he hated my father. Why is that?"

"Hate, I believe, is too strong a word for such things. While they did dislike one another, your father did do one thing that Severus was never able to forgive."

"And what was that?"

"Saved his life," Dumbledore said simply, with a subtle tone suggesting that that would be all he would say about that.

Confused though he was, Harry was starting to think a bit more clearly, but that still didn't make sense. Snape hated Harry's father for saving him? What kind of person does that? Still, Harry knew when an adult was going to hide information, so he moved on.

"Alright… one more question. Why did Vol– sorry, You-Know-Who–"

"His name is Voldemort, Harry, and I have always said that to be afraid of a thing's name is to increase the fear of it."

"Yes, well, why did Voldemort come after my family? Why did he try to kill me?"

Dumbledore sighed, momentarily looking his full age, "I believe that you are too young for the full explanation, but," he said, preventing Harry's upset outburst, "I can say that he believed your parents to be a threat to him and his plans for having defied him."

Harry nodded. Dumbledore was hiding something – a lot of things if he had to guess – but Harry couldn't think of any way to get more out of him. Maybe if Jet Jaguar or the Shobijin were here they'd know a way. Still, without a way to drag more information out, Harry thanked the headmaster and the old wizard left him alone… for about five minutes.

"HARRY!"

Harry sat up to see Hermione coming towards him to pull him into a hug. Neville was behind her and a bit less exuberant, but still looked very happy.

Powering through the pain that Hermione's hug was putting him in, Harry asked, "What? You're hugging me like it's been years. I haven't been out that long have I?"

Neville gave him a weird look. "Harry, you were out cold for a week. We were starting to think you were dead."

"A week? What did I miss? Hold on, never mind. Before that, I'm sorry for dragging you two into that. I didn't realize how dangerous that was going to be. Hermione, you could have been poisoned. And Neville, you might've died, not to mention that you lost your wand because of me."

"We'd never have let you go down there by yourself Harry, get the very idea out of your head," was Hermione's stern response.

Neville nodded in agreement, adding, "I will miss my wand. It was my dad's and I was sure that Gran would be furious with me for getting it broken, but I think Dumbledore explained some of what happened down there. I've never seen her so proud of me…" He trailed off, beaming.

The trio talked about nothing for a few more minutes until Madame Pomfrey shooed out Hermione and Neville, saying that Harry still needed to rest and recover.

A few days later, she let Harry leave, mostly because it was time for the leaving feast and she could not keep him any longer than that.

There was a bit of nervous energy in the air at the feast, mostly due to how oddly close the house points were. Slytherin had won for the last seven years straight, but Draco's dragon stunt had cost them so many that they were neck and neck with the Hufflepuffs, whose hard work had earned them many, many points; and the Ravenclaws, who had done the same, and additionally unexpectedly won the Quidditch Cup that year. Gryffindor was still in dead last, because there was only so much Harry could do to prevent Snape taking points off of him.

The headmaster stood up and started his speech, hushing everyone in the room.

"Another year has gone by, another group of seventh years are leaving us to go out into the world, and another group of first years have been initiated. The House Cup is almost ready to be given away in what appears to be a three-way tie, but I think that in light of events you've all heard a version of, there are a few last minute points to give out."

A murmur broke out at that. Everyone had heard some version of what went on in the third floor corridor, but no one knew the whole truth. Maybe Dumbledore's final points would shed some light on it.

"First, for an impressive act of selflessness and courage in the face of the most dangerous chess match Hogwarts has seen in many years, I give twenty-five points to Neville Longbottom."

The Neville who'd gotten on the Hogwarts Express all those months ago would have shrank into his seat at the applause he received, but as it was he accepted them with a broad grin on his face.

"Second, for keeping a cool head under pressure and exercise of flawless logic, I award twenty-five points to Hermione Granger."

More applause and a blush from Hermione, who whispered to her friends, "We're tied with the other houses now!"

"And finally, though I may disapprove of his chosen method, for saving a truly priceless artifact from the clutches of evil, I award twenty-five points to Harry Potter."

That put them just above the other houses, and Gryffindor erupted in cheers. Although somewhat muted, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw applauded as well, because at least it hadn't been Slytherin again. Dumbledore changed the hall's decorations to Gryffindor colors, and the feast began.

Before getting on board the train, something occurred to Harry, and he ran to catch up to Hermione.

"Hey, Hermione!"

"Yes?"

"I just realized, that I live on a tropical island, and have a snowy owl. It would be cruel for me to keep her there, and you don't have an owl yet. As much as I love her, would you like to have her, at least for the summer?"

"Harry, are you sure?"

"I'm positive, but if you want to be completely sure," Harry looked to his owl. "What do you say girl? Would you like to spend the summer with Hermione?"

The snowy owl gave a hoot and fluttered onto Hermione's shoulder, and Harry received another crushing hug, but this one did not cause him pain.

"I don't know what to say…"

"You don't have to say anything. And you don't even have to write if you don't want to, because I'm so many time zones away from you, it'll take forever for letters to go back and forth. So we'll have lots to talk about when we meet up in September!"

Once the trio had reunited in their shared compartment, Harry gave the same message to Neville, who did see the wisdom behind it.

The ride was uneventful, and Harry and Hermione parted ways from Neville when the train stopped, because they both needed to exit to muggle London. Hermione said goodbye and ran to meet her parents, but Harry was confronted by a strange sight.

He could see his uncle Jet Jaguar and ran to hug him, but much more strangely he saw a horse-like woman, a walrus-like man, and a hideously obese child who all looked most displeased at having to be there; the man, by far the most angry looking, was holding up a sign that said, "Harry Potter."

Jet Jaguar had noticed this too, and so he and Harry went over there to confront the strange family.

The three settled their gazes on him, and Walrus Man (which is what Harry would continue to think of him as no matter what his real name was) barked, "Are you Harry Potter?"

Harry glanced at his robot uncle, who laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Aside from Voldemort's face, and Snape, he'd never seen anyone look at him with such undisguised hatred.

"Yes, but–"

"Then come along boy. The freaks say we have to take you in."

Walrus Man reached for him, but Jet Jaguar immediately stood in his way and grabbed hold of his hand.

"Thanks Uncle. Now, who are you and why would I come with you?"

Walrus Man was turning purple with fury, but wasn't saying anything, so it fell to his wife Horse Woman to say it.

"I am Petunia Dursley, that is my husband Vernon, this is my son Dudley, and you're coming with us because those _freaks_ say that we have to take in my _perfect_ sister's son."

"Wait a minute," Harry looked to his real uncle, the one who brought him to Monster Island. "This is the woman who hated my mom so much that she already hates me?"

Without even loosening his grip on Vernon's arm, Jet Jaguar nodded.

Petunia huffed, "You should be grateful for our generous offer to take you in. It's not our fault that that crackpot of a headmaster wants to force you on us."

_So this is Dumbledore's doing,_ Harry thought.

"Well you can tell the esteemed headmaster that we agree on one thing: we don't like each other. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going with my _real_ uncle back to my _real_ family – the one that loves me. Uncle JJ, I think he's had enough."

Jet Jaguar unceremoniously let go of Vernon, whose sheer weight and the effort he'd been using to try to free himself, drew even more attention as he fell flat on his enormous arse.

Not caring in the least that it was going to draw more attention, both to them and the unfortunate Dursleys, Jet Jaguar grew until he could hold Harry's luggage with one hand and Harry himself in the other. Then he took to the sky.

It was time to go home.


	13. Chapter 13

Jet Jaguar landed near the village, dropping Harry and his luggage off near his hut. Harry, excited to be home, ran towards Mothra's den to start telling his whole extended family about his year. The whole group was already gathered there because the robot had already told them that Harry would be coming home today.

Mothra was like a grandmother… a colossal, moth-shaped grandmother, but she still radiated the kind of maternal instinct and agedness Harry believed a grandmother would have. She was curious to see what he had learned that year, forcing him to sheepishly admit that he couldn't show her anything, not because he didn't want to, but because his wand had been destroyed during a battle to the death.

Naturally, that got Godzilla's attention, and from what Harry could tell he had a mixed reaction. The King of the Monsters had no problems with Minilla getting into fights… but that was because he was always there to intervene if another monster (Kamacuras or Kumonga ninety-nine percent of the time) tried to make it a fight to the finish. He demanded a vivid description of what happened.

Harry said that that happened at the very end of the year, and he'd get to it eventually. His dad huffed like a spoiled child being asked to wait. He talked about his year and his friends, and elaborated a bit on the troll incident. Jet Jaguar helped, growing and shrinking until Harry told him that he was troll sized. Godzilla nodded his approval, but then growled a bit more as he realized that wasn't the fight to the death because Harry still had his wand at the end.

By this point many of the villagers had gathered, and Harry got a bit more dramatic in his descriptions, talking about meeting Fluffy, receiving the invisibility cloak, and helping Hagrid keep his dragon. The kaiju remembered Hagrid. They approved of him and were glad he got to keep his "daughter."

Harry suddenly burst out laughing as he remembered the Christmas holidays, realizing all at once that Fred and George Weasley had been pelting Voldemort in the face with snowballs and the Dark Lord had been forced to grit his teeth and bear it.

Of course, saying that earned murmurs from what was now the whole village, and Harry had no more excuses to delay explaining how things had ended. Quickly rushing over how every other part of his year had been great (besides potions; history was still good because it was essentially a free period), Harry explained how he and his friends had determined that the villain would strike when Dumbledore was gone.

He detailed the obstacles and earned more approval when he said he had just kicked the door down rather than looking for the key. Finally, he got to the encounter with Quirrell.

"It turned out that all the stuttering and incompetence was an act. He blocked or countered every spell I sent his way, so I tried to set him on fire. Then he cast this weird spell that took all the flames and sent them back into my wand and made it explode, and I got so distracted by that that he was able to conjure ropes and bind me. Then he unwrapped his turban and he had Voldemort's face on the back of his head. The face started talking to me about how it was immortal and how it only believed in power. I really thought for a minute there that I was going to die, but instead of doing that, I did this!"

As Jet Jaguar finished translating for the monsters, Harry exhaled blue flames drawing gasps from the crowd and thunderous applause from Godzilla and Minilla.

Harry took a bow. While the Infant Islanders regarded Harry as strange, they knew he'd been trying to do that for years and they happily cheered for him, and over the roar of the small crowd Harry heard Godzilla grunting his approval. With all the noise, Harry almost didn't hear Mothra suddenly screech, and the Shobijin shout "Harry, move!"

Knowing better than to disobey such an urgent command Harry dove and rolled in the direction of his dad, looking back from a crouched position to see a puff of fire appear mere inches from where he'd been standing. As it subsided, it revealed Albus Dumbledore standing there, some magnificent red and gold bird perching on his shoulder.

Completely ignoring his surroundings, the headmaster looked at Harry and went into lecture mode. "Harry my boy, I've just spoken to your relatives and they tell me that you said some very hurtful words and refused to go home with them. Now, I am sure that it was all a simple misunderstanding. I've already smoothed it over with your aunt and uncle, so if you'll come with me…"

He extended his arm, only faltering briefly because once Jet Jaguar translated that the professor was here to take Harry away Godzilla let out an ear-splitting roar of rage. The headmaster also found himself confronted by a wall of spears on one side and a combat-ready android behind him. It went without saying that the atmosphere was tense, at least partially because with a threat to his younger son in the area Godzilla's atomic breath was now on a hair trigger.

"No professor, I'm staying with my real family," Harry replied firmly.

"Harry, this is clearly a hostile environment, it cannot be good for you. Once you are at your relatives' house you will be protected."

Gesturing to the kaiju, the villagers, and the robot, Harry asked, "What could you have possibly done to that house that I would be better protected there than surrounded by everyone here?"

The professor looked reluctant to answer, but replied, "All those years ago when your mother sacrificed herself to protect you, her love, her protection, bound itself to your blood. You can only truly be safe in a home with your blood relatives, where I have created wards that will protect you."

The Shobijin drew attention to themselves by asking a question, whether to attempt to reason with the old headmaster or to distract him Harry did not know. "Do you truly believe Harry will be better protected than he has been for the last ten peaceful years?"

Looking at the fairies, Dumbledore simply replied, "Yes."

That answer was the last straw for Godzilla. According to Jet Jaguar this strange man offered nothing but insults and threats to take Harry away. He was too close to Harry for incineration to be an option, so he knelt down and reached for the old man.

Dumbledore apparated a short distance back, watching the King of the Monsters and clearly trying to determine whether or not he knew a spell that could take down a creature of that size.

Even if he did, he would not get the chance. Jet Jaguar stepped forward to prevent him from doing anything, but he paid a price for his initiative: the bird apparently saw him coming and landed on his arm, and then both of them vanished in a burst of flame.

"NO!"

There were shouts and roars of outrage as the respected robot disappeared, but Harry – and to everyone's surprise, Minilla – were the only ones to lose control. Harry blasted a stream of fire and Minilla backed him up with a radioactive smoke ring.

Blocking the former and seemingly unable to dispel the latter before it could reach him, Dumbledore called out "Fawkes!" and when the bird appeared moments later, they both disappeared in another puff of flames. A second too late to do anything, Minilla's smoke ring sizzled against the ground.

It was with a somber mood that everyone parted. The villagers did their best to console Harry and to keep an eye on him in case Dumbledore returned, but it seemed that the headmaster was content with whatever he was doing to Jet Jaguar, because he did not return, at least not that day.

It was a disturbed sleep Harry had that night, filled with surreal dreams. A firebird took him to a walrus and then disappeared, and then the walrus stuffed him in a box while a horse and tub of lard called him names. Then a shadowy figure appeared outside the box and laughed as green light filled Harry's mind's eye.

In the waking world Harry tossed and turned beneath his father's cloak before starting to dream again. This time he saw Jet Jaguar trying to fight off a firebird inside some swirling vortex of flames before he melted into a puddle of molten metal, pointing an accusing finger at Harry in his final moments.

Finally, in the last dream he had before waking up he was a puppet tangled in his own strings as Dumbledore tried to make him perform various nonsensical tasks while lecturing him about forgiveness, redemption, and love. For reasons Harry did not quite understand, this dream was the most disturbing to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of you want more kaiju action, and that will eventually happen, but the important word there is eventually. Unfortunately I can't say anymore without giving away future plot points.
> 
> There is one concern that I feel that I can nip in the bud right now. Some of you have expressed worries that first year was too close to canon. Harry made friends with Neville instead of Ron and learned to breathe fire, and that's about it for differences. I want you to remember that the prophecy talks about "power he knows not." The fire breath can never work again because Voldemort will know that it's coming. Harry will push himself to learn magic, but he's only just been through his first year – he needs a solid foundation to build on. Second year is where I can really get going with the changes.
> 
> So hold on to your butts everybody (so no keeping wands in your back pocket lest you accidentally remove a butt-cheek), because second year is where things start to get crazy.


	14. Chapter 14

Harry threw himself into his summer homework in an effort to escape the guilt and grief he felt for what he suspected that Jet Jaguar was going through. The Shobijin had done their best to reassure him that Jet Jaguar had fought the forces of evil for almost as long as he'd existed, and knew that there were occupational hazards to such a career, but Harry still couldn't help but feel bad about what had happened. Who knew what kind of horrors his robot uncle was being subjected to? No one on the island really knew how to (or even if someone could) torture an android, but that just meant Harry's imagination ran wild in the worst possible ways.

Harry spent most of his time during his first month at home in either Mothra or Godzilla's shadow. It made everyone feel better. Mothra was confident that if bird or man showed up again she could blow them away, and Godzilla wanted to find out if the firebird was immune to the atomic ray… but after a month of nothing happening, they realized that there would be no further attempts to abduct Harry and let him get back to his routine of wandering the island.

He was beginning to regret telling his friends that they wouldn't need to contact him, but he felt that his reasoning at the time had been sound. Both Neville and Hermione lived much too far away to be sending owls. He wondered why there weren't easier ways to communicate in the magical world, especially considering that they had near-instantaneous travel with things like portkeys. He'd heard of live-broadcasting, so he knew that muggles had some instant or near-instant communication methods, and he expected that wizards had something similar. It would be quite a let down if they didn't.

He wondered why he hadn't asked more questions about the way that the magical world worked, but guessed that he'd probably expected to learn all about it during history of magic… what a mistake that had been.

Living on the island was also becoming more stifling. There were more and more outsiders coming to Monster Island, and while they usually stayed away from the village, that meant he could not wander around as much as he used to, and even if he did he had to stay under the invisibility cloak to avoid discovery.

It also didn't help that everyone he spoke to about that feeling – human, fairy, or kaiju – all replied that Harry was just experiencing the beginnings of adolescence. Manda, in his great age, was the most eloquent about it, saying that Harry was like a fledgling bird experiencing the first urge to leave its nest.

In the end, Harry stopped complaining and embraced a new role in the village: roasting meat and fish with controlled bursts of his fiery breath.

* * *

Meanwhile, Headmaster Albus Dumbledore had a rather large problem. His plans for Harry Potter had gone terribly awry.

First, the boy hadn't been raised by his aunt and uncle as he'd hoped would happen. He still did not know exactly how, but the Dursleys hadn't ever seen Harry until just days ago. Apparently he had grown up on a place called "Monster Island," and that would not do at all.

He did not know for sure, but Dumbledore had always had a sneaking suspicion that Tom had used horcruxes to survive that night in Godric's Hollow, and that his soul had been so unstable that a piece had been blasted into Harry.

Dumbledore, as one of the greatest wizards alive, had the terrible burden of almost always being right. If Harry did indeed have a horcrux inside him, then he needed to grow up in a certain way to prevent disaster.

First, he couldn't be too attached to the muggle world. Dumbledore knew that there would be very little love lost between Harry and the Dursleys, but it would be enough for Lily's protection to keep the boy safe, albeit not happy.

Second, he needed to be in awe of the wizarding world and to view it as his true home. He'd sent Hagrid to fetch Harry rather than anyone else because Hagrid still had that almost childlike awe about many aspects of the wizarding world, but that had been a bust. Hagrid was now enamored with the beasts of Monster Island, and based on what the half-giant had told him, Harry was too to a lesser extent.

His plans could still be salvaged during the boy's schooling. The most important part of the plan was that Harry be self-sacrificing – willing to die for his new home.

That had been a mixed bag.

If Dumbledore's plan had gone off without a hitch, Harry would have been a rather passive boy, but one who craved adventure after so many years with the Dursleys. It would not have been any kind of magic that saved him from the possessed Quirrell, but the power of his mother's love.

As it was the boy still had the zeal for adventure, albeit tempered by the common sense of Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom, but could not be called passive by any means. He had a natural knack for the practical side of magic, and Miss Granger kept him up to speed on its theoretical aspects. Rather than the middling-to-poor student that Severus insisted he was, Harry was near the top of the class in most subjects.

But it had not been love that stopped Voldemort at the end of the protections. The boy could apparently breathe fire. How was that possible? More worryingly, he hadn't been the least bit disturbed by Quirrell's death. Dumbledore had expected to swoop in and offer comfort and answers to appear grandfatherly, but it hadn't worked or been needed; the boy hadn't been angsting about killing a professor, but ecstatic that he'd been able to master breathing fire. Worse still the boy considered the monsters of the island his family rather than his relatives. Vernon and Petunia had been vocally clear on that, but their fear of wizardry kept them in line. Dumbledore never once threatened them; if they drew unfortunate conclusions, that reflected on them, not on him.

A loud clatter followed by Fawkes screeching indignantly interrupted his thoughts and Dumbledore briefly turned around, waved his wand to repair the damage, and reflexively stunned and bound the captured robot once again. When he'd first returned to his office, it had been in shambles from Jet Jaguars struggles, and it had taken the old man quite a few spells to determine that minor lightning hexes could temporarily stun it.

It seemed that this muggle golem experienced something akin to pain just from being surrounded by magic, but was still able to function. That was worrying for the Statute of Secrecy, but fascinating in its own right. Still, Harry considered the mechanical construct to be his uncle. Perhaps he could use that, but before any of that could happen the robot needed to be able to function in the presence of magic.

Having yet another brilliant idea, Dumbledore approached his fireplace and contacted the Burrow.

"Hello Molly, is Arthur there? Ah, good. I know how much you like tinkering with muggle machines, so I hope that I am not imposing by asking you for a favor…"


	15. Chapter 15

After an uneventful summer, Harry once again found himself in Diagon Alley. Feeling defenseless without one, Harry's first stop was at Ollivander's wand shop.

"Ah, Mr. Potter, what brings you here this time?"

Harry wasn't entirely sure how much of what had happened in the forbidden corridor was known outside of Hogwarts, and still wasn't sure whether or not he liked the wand maker, so he skimped on the details. All he said was that there had been an incident near the end of the school year and that his wand had been destroyed during the events.

Ollivander nodded solemnly, "Just like Mr. Longbottom's then. That must have been quite some incident that two wands were destroyed – it takes quite a lot to break one in the first place but to outright destroy it…" he trailed off as he went into the back. "Mr. Longbottom was quite a tricky customer. You might find it interesting to know that he received one of the two wands made from those hairs you gave me last summer."

"Really?"

"Oh yes, mahogany and Mothra hair. I cannot completely predict that wand's properties, but I would wager that young Neville will have a knack for defense in the coming year. I don't bring that up just for idle conversation; I have a strong feeling that one of the other wands I constructed for you will be your match."

Ollivander returned holding a wand in each hand. Holding out the first he said, "Cherry wood and Manda's scale. Phenomenally powerful from what I can tell. Try it."

Harry held it and gave it a wave.

"I can feel the power… but it's like it doesn't want to respond to me."

The wand maker took it back murmuring, "Yes, I thought as much. The scale seems to make it quite temperamental. Ah well, that means some other lucky customer will get quite a surprise. Now try this one: laurel wood and Mothra's hair."

This time Harry felt the familiar warmth running from the wand into his body, but a bit more intensely than with his old one. Just to be sure, he gave the wand a wave and swirl of sparkling gold moths emerged.

"I do believe we have a match. As a custom work that will be thirty galleons."

Harry handed over the gold coins quite happily and set off to do the rest of his school shopping. He took his time browsing in each shop, albeit carefully in order to keep his scar out of sight. Last year Harry had felt somewhat rushed by Hagrid, but this year he had arrived an entire day early and had plans to rent a room at the Leaky Cauldron, so he knew he had plenty of time.

There was one shop in particular that sold enchanted clocks meant to keep track of your loved ones with such "times" as traveling, working, and even mortal peril. Harry had hesitantly asked the shopkeeper what good the mortal peril option was without knowing what was happening, and the man replied that under most circumstances it wasn't that good, but if you knew somebody else who knew where your loved one was in peril, you could contact that person and they might be able to save a life.

Harry inquired how much it was and how to make it work. While not very expensive, in order to make one work you needed everyone you planned to track in the same room as the clock for at least a moment. Harry had sighed wearily at that and thanked the man for his time. He'd hoped to be able to use it to track down Jet Jaguar, but there was simply no way to do so.

There was another shop that sold enchanted trunks that were bigger on the inside and had featherlight charms on them. Harry seriously considered getting one, but had a vision of falling in and getting trapped. No, he wouldn't be getting one of those – not yet anyway.

Harry restocked his potion supplies at the apothecary, and while he was sorely tempted by the solid gold cauldron (there were apparently some very advanced, highly beneficial potions that treated pewter as an ingredient rather than a container) he decided that he wouldn't be able to learn enough with Snape teaching the subject to justify the cost.

Finally, Harry entered Flourish and Blotts. This time he planned on really taking his time to explore the shop – he'd gotten lucky last year with the survival guide and now he wondered what else was lurking in the corners and crevices of the store. He realized that he could probably ask one of the employees for help, but Harry liked to explore and examine things on his own.

There was one book so large and heavy that he could barely lift it called the _Encyclopedia Magicka_ , which was apparently a compendium of all the wizarding world's spells, history, and famous figures. Harry considered it, but decided he'd get it another time.

There were apparently unofficial companion books to the _Standard Book of Spells_ series called the _Nonstandard Book of Spells_ , which were supposedly full of spells that were useful or amusing, but not necessary to know for school or life. After a moments hesitation, Harry bought the complete set of both series and stuffed them into his trunk. Though substantially heavier, Harry was full capable of carrying it thanks to his exercise regimen.

In the bookstore wonders never ceased. There was one book that claimed to be a stack of books all on top of each other called the Intangible Book of Intangibility, which Harry found that he could not even touch. An employee saw him trying and used her wand to move it out of his reach, telling him that that was the entire collection all layered on top of each other and was only for witches and wizards advanced enough to get a copy to the counter in the first place.

There was another book the size of a postage stamp with an expansion charm between the front and back that was all about keeping secrets in the wizarding world, starting with making things hard to find. Another one bound in silk reputed to be about how to live in luxury purely through the twin magics of conjuration and transfiguration, but it had an exorbitant price.

Finally, there were two books that Harry saw and immediately bought. The employee ringing him up almost put them back, saying that they were far too advanced for someone his age, but Harry would not be denied. Deciding that fame had to be good for something, Harry flashed his scar at the man, who immediately stammered an apology sounding nearly as bad as professor Quirrell.

In his room at the Leaky Cauldron, Harry brought out the two books that had caught his eye.

_The Four Humours of Magick_ was an aged looking book. It was a bit difficult to read given its older dialect, but it was still in English and Harry was determined. It postulated that instead of (or in addition to; apparently magical researchers disagreed) Light and Dark magic, there were four other styles: Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, and Phlegmatic. Much of the foreword was historical background that Harry simply wasn't interested in, but eventually it did provide a helpful chart.

Melancholic magic was associated with earth – as in stone and soil, rather than the entire planet to Harry's disappointment – and avoiding problems. Phlegmatic magic had a connection to water and was about influencing events to get what you wanted; to Harry's fascination it had a weird connection to divination, and was in its own words "about influencing the tides of fate so that the path of least resistance is the path most beneficial to oneself." Sanguine magic was connected to the air – not so much wind as "the subtle magic of words" – and was about being "socially useful," whatever that meant. Finally, Choleric magic was connected to fire and was about ruling things – be it other people, oneself, or one's own fate.

Feeling a bit of headache coming on, Harry went to the next book which he suspected was much more straightforward. _The 52 Elemental Curses_ , compiled by Blenheim Zarkoff, was exactly what it said it was – a collection of the fifty-two curses that revolved around the elements. Apparently there were thirteen spells each of fire, water, wind, and lightning – ten "normal" curses that were all essentially the same one with increasing amounts of power behind them, and three utterly unique and devastating attacks.

Harry went to bed in a good mood that night, but awoke suddenly in the dark to see a small figure trying to grab his trunk. Deciding that the restriction on underage magic could go do something unpleasant to itself before he'd let that happen, he tried to cast a curse at the figure… but it felt like halfway to the wand tip the power stopped.

Harry was very confused until he remembered what Mothra had said – a wand with her hair in it would not harm the innocent. But that meant that who or whatever was trying to steal his trunk had a very good reason.

"Lumos."

The figure was small, around three-and-a-half feet tall, with pointy bat-like ears, large eyes, a long thin nose, and wearing a ratty looking pillowcase. It was staring at him in a mixture of awe and fright.

"What, er, I mean who are you and why are you trying to steal my stuff?"

The creature replied in a high pitched voice, "I is Dobby sir, a house elf. Dobby is trying to take your things because the great Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts."

Harry looked bewildered. "I don't follow. How would getting rid of my things stop me from going to Hogwarts and why shouldn't I go?"

"Dobby thought that without his things Harry would fail and be expelled, and forced to go somewhere where it would be safe. Bad things is coming to Hogwarts this year."

"What kind of bad things?"

Dobby looked like he wanted to say something, but instead started bashing his head against Harry's trunk.

"What are you doing? Stop that!"

"Dobby must punish himself. Dobby was about to say bad things about his master."

"So your master is going to cause bad things to happen at Hogwarts?"

Dobby nodded once, bashed his head against the trunk, and then shook his head.

"So yes and no?"

Dobby nodded vigorously.

"So your master is going to… do something to make someone or something else make the bad things happen?"

Dobby nodded excitedly.

"Okay then. I'll promise not to go if you'll promise not to bother me anymore."

Dobby looked flabbergasted. "All-all Dobby needed to do was ask?"

"Well, yes. I mean, if you kept trying to stop me with no explanation then that would make me even more determined to go, but if this is something so bad that you're willing to hurt yourself trying to protect me, then I won't go, simple as that."

Dobby looked ecstatic and expressed it vocally.

"Oh Dobby is so happy that the great Harry Potter is going to be safe. Dobby promises he will not bother the great Harry Potter if he will promise not to go to Hogwarts."

"I promise."

Dobby disappeared with a faint pop, and Harry let out a heavy sigh. Lying to the house elf's large puppy eyes had been difficult, and also made him feel bad for some reason, but it had been the most pragmatic thing to do. Sure, he could have stubbornly refused to listen and flat out told the elf he was going to go, but even an idiot would have been able to see that Dobby was preparing to do something drastic if Harry hadn't agreed not to go back. Now he could just turn up at the station and hope Dobby didn't realize the deception until it was too late.

Wondering what the danger could possibly be and hoping that his new books would be enough to prepare for it, Harry got back in bed and fell into a dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, some of you may ask why Harry is the one finding all of these extra books and not Hermione. The short answer is that it lets the plot run smoother, but I imagine you'll want the long answer. In the books, Hermione is a very studious, by the book kind of person. We also know that by the time of Deathly Hallows, she knows the most spells out of anyone in the trio. What I'm trying to say (and probably failing to) is that Hermione likely would have checked out or bought these books for herself if they existed in canon, but never really thought that they would be useful in their adventures or simply preferred the spells in her textbooks, and since neither Harry nor Ron were ever very studious in canon they kind of just followed her lead.


	16. Chapter 16

At King's Cross Station, Harry arrived bright and early. He wanted to scout out the train for the best compartments; he doubted that any of them were better than the others but it couldn't hurt to look.

There was one compartment near the caboose that already had someone in it. Her dirty-blonde hair hung down to her waist and she had large grey eyes. At the moment she was reading a newspaper – no, a magazine – upside-down. Harry squinted and saw that it was called the _Quibbler_. She was wearing a necklace made of corks and a pair of earrings that looked like a kind of fruit, but he could not place what kind. She was also wearing her wand behind her ear.

"Hello," she said in a dreamy, almost distracted kind of voice.

"Hello, my name's Harry, who are you?"

"I'm Luna. It's nice to meet you Harry."

Feeling oddly comfortable around this girl, Harry opted to sit down beside her.

"So what are you reading?"

She smiled and replied, "This is my copy of my daddy's magazine, the _Quibbler_. I was doing the rune-based crossword puzzle, which needs to be done upside down."

"Oh. That sounds interesting." And to Harry it actually did. He didn't know much about runes except a vague comment from Hermione about how it was older magic from before wands.

Luna's grin got bigger, and she continued, "Oh it is, but before you came in I was trying to do it quickly so that I could move on and read daddy's article about our summer hunt for the Crumple-Horned Snorkack."

Harry nodded along until that point. "I'm sorry, the what?"

"You've never heard of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack?" She seemed less surprised than disappointed, giving Harry the sense this was a common occurrence.

"Well, I was raised away from the magical world, and not a lot of owls are up to the trip to Monster Island so I don't know a lot of magical creatures to be honest."

"Monster Island? Where is that?"

"Well how about we play a little game. I'll tell you a bit about Monster Island if you tell me more about the Snorkack. Does that sound good?"

And so Harry and Luna spent the next hour getting to know each other through their talk of different creatures. Harry talked about each of the kaiju, and Luna talked about creatures like Snorkacks, Nargles, and Blibbering Humdingers.

They were interrupted a short while later by the door to their compartment opening, followed by a panicked squeak and a slam.

"Er, what was that?"

"That looked like Ginny, although I can't imagine what would have scared her like that. I certainly don't see any Heliopaths nearby."

"I think I might have an idea," Harry groaned, and when Luna looked to him for an explanation he briefly pulled back his bangs to show his scar.

Luna frowned slightly. "I don't understand. She's afraid of your forehead?"

Harry's respect for Luna rocketed upwards and he chuckled, although he wasn't entirely sure whether or not she was being sarcastic.

"No, I think she got nervous because I'm Harry Potter, and a lot of people seem to freak out when they see me for the first time."

"Oh, you're Harry _Potter_. Are the rumors about last year true? Was Professor Quirrell really infested by Aquavirius Maggots?"

"…I don't think so, although that would have explained how he smelled. He actually had Vol- sorry, er, You-Know-Who on the back of his head."

Luna gave him a scathing look. "It was just a question, there's no need to tell such a ridiculous lie."

Shocked at her doubt, Harry looked directly into her eyes and replied, "I'm not lying, it's the truth… at least, Quirrell said it was You-Know-Who, and then the face on the back of his head said it was You-Know-Who. I suppose they could've been a really convincing fake…"

Luna looked thoughtful about that. "It would be the kind of thing that the Rotfang Conspiracy would do, but it's quite a step up from gum disease…"

Before Harry could ask what the Rotfang Conspiracy was and what it could possibly have to do with gum disease, a familiar voice called out, "There you are!"

Hermione entered the compartment, Neville following just behind her.

"Hi Neville, Hermione! This is my new friend Luna."

"We're friends?" Luna sounded shocked but hopeful.

Harry gave her an almost hurt look, replying, "I thought we were getting there… I don't normally talk for so long with people I don't think of as a friend."

In turn Luna gave him a hug and Harry felt a strange warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with magic or fire, but before he could place it Hermione was starting to introduce herself and Neville and Luna broke away to talk.

It was mostly a happy conversation, Hermione's trip to France with her parents providing the bulk of material for discussion. In turn Luna talked about her trip to Switzerland with her father. Harry noted that when she mentioned the various creatures they had been looking for both Neville and Hermione gave her odd looks. He wondered why, but figured that he could ask later.

Neville apparently didn't think his break was much to talk about, but since it was a typical wizarding holiday and neither Harry nor Hermione had an experience with such things they made him elaborate. Apparently he'd spent most of his summer tending to the plants in his home's greenhouse in between practicing his spellwork with his new wand. That was a subject that brought a smile to his face – it seemed that everything was so much easier for him now that he had a matching wand, and he thanked Harry for getting Mothra ("whoever or whatever she is") to donate the hair. Apparently the trace only detected magic cast around the young witch or wizard, so since he lived in a wizarding household Neville could practice to his heart's content. Hermione was more than a little peeved about that, so Neville urged Harry to share his summer before she got started on a rant.

Harry made silence fall in the compartment when he regaled them with the tale of how the headmaster had first set up a meeting with his relatives at the train station expecting him to go with them, and then showed up on Monster Island with plans to take him to those same relatives, only to settle for abducting Jet Jaguar, who had now been missing for three months.

Hermione could scarcely believe that Dumbledore would do such a thing, and Neville went very quiet. Luna gave him another hug from her position at his side and offered her condolences. Harry continued the story of his summer, explaining that apart from that things had been calm and rather boring until he spent the night at the Leaky Cauldron, when something called a house elf attempted to steal his trunk.

Neville looked aghast until Harry elaborated that it was clearly acting against some orders, to the point of having to punish itself. He elaborated that the elf claimed its name was Dobby and that his master planned to set in motion a sequence of events that would make Hogwarts very dangerous, and planned to make Harry stay away from the school. Harry explained that he'd lied to the elf to get it to leave him alone, and so far everything seemed to be working.

"Poor Dobby, it sounds like his master is very cruel. Only the worst masters make house elves hurt themselves."

"I know, it sounds barbaric!"

Hermione almost got onto a soapbox about liberating house elves, but Neville defused it by explaining that house elves needed to stay around magical areas to survive, and those bonded to wizards usually lived longer because they usually lived around areas with more magic, and were usually treated well. Hermione's fuse was mostly put out by that, but she still tried to create (and convince them to join) the Society for the Protection of Elf Workers.

When Harry teasingly pointed out that that spelled "spew" she hit him as Neville and Luna stifled giggles.

The train ride passed without incident. Malfoy was either too lazy to walk all the way to the back of the train or he had found someone easier to goad.

It turned out that only first years rode the boats; everyone else rode up to the school in carriages that appeared to be pulled by magic alone, and shortly after they were seated Harry was finally able to ask, "Why did you two keep giving Luna those odd looks?"

The two looked at each other, and Neville decided to speak first.

"I didn't want to say anything because it would have been rude, but the _Quibbler_ is kind of seen as a joke by most wizards. The creatures and the conspiracies in it just don't exist."

Harry frowned at that. "How do you know they don't? Hermione, you know that just because something hasn't been discovered doesn't mean it doesn't exist right?"

Hesitating, Hermione replied, "Well, yes, but… Harry, have you ever read the _Quibbler_?"

"No. Are you saying that you have?"

She nodded. "Neville gave me an old issue when I owled him about wizarding publications."

Harry looked at his other best friend, who answered the silent question by saying, "Sometimes Gran will order a copy for a laugh, so there were a few copies laying around the house."

The trio spent several more minutes arguing about the merits and demerits of the _Quibbler_ , until Neville and Hermione agreed that they wouldn't criticize it around Luna, and Harry could order or ask for a copy to judge it for himself.

The Sorting proceeded normally, even if it did bring in a few colorful characters. Colin Creevy had to be asked not to take pictures during the Sorting before he was sent to Gryffindor. Ginevra Weasley, the girl who'd squeaked and ran away from Harry on the train, joined the rest of her family in Gryffindor as well, and Luna Lovegood, after a few moments of deliberation, went to Ravenclaw. Harry was disappointed. It seemed to be very difficult to make friends outside of one's house, and he'd been hoping to see more of Luna around.

Well he would just have to try harder this year. Yes, Harry decided, this year he would really push himself both socially and academically. It's what his android uncle would have wanted.

* * *

Meanwhile, in Arthur Weasley's garage Jet Jaguar leaned against the wall and tried to focus on growing, but lost it after only a few seconds. Despite his ignorance of seemingly basic technology, the robot's warden seemed to have a knack for making machines function around magic, albeit at some cost. Cars were not meant to growl like wolves, nor were washing machines meant to growl back. Still, Jet Jaguar was made of sterner stuff than most machines, and so far only his internal clock had been damaged, and his memory of how to grow. He knew he could do it, he'd just been internally damaged to the point where he did not know _how_.

He'd only caught parts of Arthur's discussion with Dumbledore, but he'd been able to piece together what the headmaster had said based on the Weasley patriarch's musings as he worked. Apparently, the cover story revolved around Dumbledore's position as Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards – Jet Jaguar was supposed to be a malfunctioning golem designed to blend in with "roh-butts" as the man mispronounced the term, that were increasingly common in muggle society. The specific malfunctions Arthur had been asked to correct were an inability to function within strong wards (apparently the headmaster had upgraded the wards around the Burrow specifically to keep up this ruse) and a refusal to obey Dumbledore's orders.

Jet Jaguar enjoyed free will. He'd enjoyed it since the moment he'd realized he had it, and he was loath to part with it, but he could still act like he obeyed the headmaster, but the wards – apparently the protective magic surround magical areas – still caused him pain and denied him the ability to concentrate. He acted like he obeyed Dumbledore, but thanks to the wards his motions were jerky and confused, so the headmaster still did not think he was ready for… whatever he planned for Jet Jaguar to do. That was something he was very tight-lipped about.

So Jet Jaguar simply waited and planned. Sooner or later he would be free, and with his new magical upgrades there truly would be nowhere for evil to hide from him. He _would_ expose whatever plan required Harry to be with relatives that were almost guaranteed to abuse him, and he _would_ bring down Dumbledore. It was simply a matter of time.


	17. Chapter 17

To begin with, the Hogwarts rumor mill was very quickly abuzz with the fact that the care of magical creatures class was going to be much more exciting and dangerous for a while. No one knew how (except Harry, Hermione, Neville, and probably Dumbledore) but Hagrid had acquired a juvenile Norwegian ridgeback – apparently the terms of keeping it were that he take full care of and responsibility for it, and somehow teach it not to attack students. Naturally, Hagrid needed assistance with the latter half of that requirement, and Professor Kettleburn had volunteered his students for the job. Though Hermione and Neville (and really, the entire student body) were wary, Harry threw caution to the wind and visited as soon as he could find a spare moment.

"Harry, welcome back!"

"Hello Hagrid, how are things with Norberta?"

"Oh it's hard work, but it's like a dream come true too. I always wanted a dragon ever since I was a lad, an' now I got one o' me very own."

It sounded like Hagrid wanted to continue, but a loud bark caught his attention… a bark Harry noted as being much louder than Fang ought to be able to make. Hagrid started going around towards the back of his hut, and a roar rang out as well.

"Fluffy? Norberta? You two better be playing nice back there or there will be no belly or chin scratches till after dinner!"

Before Harry could even register what Hagrid had just said, he turned the corner and saw a dragon, much larger than the Norberta he'd seen hatching, staring down an even larger three-headed dog, who could only be Fluffy after a few more months of growth. There was a large slab of meat between the two of them.

Seeing that a battle was about to erupt, part of Harry wanted to sit back and watch, but remembering that they were really both Hagrid's children (in a way), he went into conflict resolution mode. He started grunting and softly growling in the language of kaiju. He knew from last year that Fluffy could understand, and Norberta had at least understood his intention when she was a hatchling, so he hoped they both understood him now.

Norberta's eye flicked over to him, and one of Fluffy's heads glanced over as well. Then both creatures sniffed the air and seemed to recognize him, but neither of them said anything or looked away from the other. Harry started explaining that they were both Hagrid's kids and that they needed to get along.

At that point both blurted that they could not possibly be siblings. Fluffy said that Norberta was horribly deformed, missing her other two heads; at the same time, Norberta said that Fluffy had some awful disfiguring disease that covered his skin in some fuzzy rash.

Barely able to stop himself from laughing, Harry said that even if those were true, it should not stop them from loving each other as family. He talked about his own family, explaining as best he could about the tiny fairies who were his aunts; the village of humans that had helped feed and bathe him; Godzilla and Minilla, his colossal, scaly, father and brother; and finally Jet Jaguar, who despite being made of metal was his uncle and just as much a part of the family as anyone else… even if he was almost certainly gone for good.

Communication among kaiju was more art than science, and so Harry had really needed to feel for and about his family while communicating about them. Apart from the simplest words and phrases, it could not be translated into English (or any other human language for that matter), but it translated well enough to both magical creatures. The dog looked ashamed and whined for forgiveness, even if it was still eyeing the meat, and the dragon managed to looked sheepish. Norberta nudged the slab towards Fluffy, rumbling something vaguely apologetic. Harry gathered that Fluffy's heads had all been fighting to eat the slab themselves and Norberta had just plucked it from their jaws.

Hagrid clapped him on the back with enough force to nearly knock him over. "Well done Harry! I don' know what yeh did, but yeh did it even better than I could have."

Harry was flustered by the sudden praise. "I just talked to them about family and how families are supposed to love each other. I hope I didn't go to far – I, er, kind of implied to them that they're your kids and need to learn to get along."

Hagrid's face took on several expressions in quick succession. There was something like mirth, then surprise, followed by awe, and finally joy, and Harry suddenly found himself in a bone-crushing hug.

"Oh bless yeh Harry, and thank yeh! Ever since me da passed on I always wanted a proper family!"

"You're welcome Hagrid," Harry squeaked out as his lungs struggled for oxygen. Realizing that the giant man might let him go if he had something else to talk about, he asked, "By the way how did you get to keep Fluffy?"

Sure enough, Hagrid put him down to answer. Apparently Norwegian ridgebacks didn't necessarily imprint on the first thing they saw, but on their surroundings during their first months of life. By the time the ministry got wind of Norberta, removing her might cause fatal stress to her body. The ministry demanded that Hagrid find a way to control the dragon, and Dumbledore pulled a few strings while arguing that something else both large and magic resistant would be needed to keep a dragon in check, and just like that Hagrid was officially approved to keep both Norberta and Fluffy at his hut. As Hagrid ended just about every story about the headmaster, he added, "Great man, Dumbledore."

Harry was quiet for a moment, and then very softly asked, "Hagrid, why do you think the headmaster is nice to you, but seems to be so mean to me?"

"What? What's all this about?"

So Harry explained the facts as he knew them: that it had been Dumbledore who'd intended for him to be with the Dursleys, and who'd tried to get Harry to go with them over the summer even though they clearly seemed to hate him, and about how the headmaster and his bird had appeared on Monster Island to try to take him to the Dursleys yet again, only to take away his uncle Jet Jaguar instead.

"And the headmaster never sent an owl or a message, and he hasn't called me to his office. He just seems determined to pretend this didn't happen."

At the end of the story, Hagrid looked quite perturbed, but also confused. Dumbledore had always been good to him, but Harry's tale painted a portrait of a very different man. He'd never known Dumbledore to lie to him, but Harry had been honest since day one; a rule-breaker maybe, but not a liar. And Hagrid remembered Jet Jaguar from the island. Yes, he was a muggle golem, not a person, but Harry thought of him as such, and the golem seemed smarter than any that Hagrid had ever met, and had certainly seemed nice enough.

"There's some kind o' misunderstandin' here, there's gotta be. I need ter meet with Dumbledore in about a week to talk about how much food Norberta will need during the winter. I'll ask about yer uncle then, and this whole thing will get cleared right up, you'll see."

"I hope so Hagrid. I'll see you later – I think I'm going to take a nap before tonight's astronomy lesson."

Harry flung Ron's rat, Scabby or something like that, off of his bed and hopped in, only for his weariness to leave him. He sighed. He hated it when he was about to rest only to get an unexpected second wind. Still, the only way to get rid of the excess energy was to burn it off and now that he was at Hogwarts, that meant one thing: it was time to go exploring.

Donning the invisibility cloak he kept with him at all times, he began wandering the halls around Gryffindor tower with two goals in mind. First, he wanted to satiate his curiosity by finding Ravenclaw tower and second, he wanted to find some abandoned office or classroom where he could practice the spells in his new books, not to mention the one by Vindictus Viridian he'd bought last year.

Hogwarts was quite a large castle, but it often gave Harry the feeling that it was even bigger on the inside. He guessed that it probably had to be given all the rearranging stairs, doors that decided to lead elsewhere or nowhere at all, and mysteriously appearing rooms (although he hadn't found any more like that after the one on the seventh floor).

Harry's musings were interrupted by a sight that brought sudden rage to his heart, and a ferocity that startled even himself.

There was a circle of older Ravenclaws surrounding Luna, all holding one or more of her belongings and keeping them away from her as she tried to get them back. Harry thought he could see the beginnings of tears in her eyes.

Harry cast without thinking, only feeling, which may have been a mistake given the resulting smell. Since those Ravenclaws had been acting like scum, Harry figured he would make them look like it as well. The result was a loud bang and all of them fleeing, covered in constantly growing pond scum, dropping Luna's things as they did so.

"Luna… are you okay?"

Luna looked up, appearing confused. "Harry?" She couldn't seem to find him with her eyes… then Harry remembered.

"Oh, right." He removed the cloak and put it back into the pocket he reserved for it.

Once he was visible, he found himself in another of Luna's hugs, this one less friendly and more desperate. It made Harry angry simply because he knew why she was in that state, but he hugged her back. It was another lesson from Mothra and the Shobijin – to offer comfort and help before all else. Even Godzilla had agreed that unless enemies were still in the area, vengeance could wait.

"Who were those people Luna? I know they were Ravenclaws but do you know their names?"

"Only the leader. Marietta Edgecombe. I don't know why she's so mean…" she trailed off morosely.

"Sh… it's not your fault Luna. Some people are just broken in that way. Come on, let's gather up your stuff. Did they take anything else?"

"No… not yet anyway."

They followed the stench of filth and algae and collected Luna's dropped belongings, Harry occasionally casting " _reparo_ " on items that had been damaged.

"What were you doing under your invisibility cloak Harry?"

"I like to explore the castle, but I get tired of people gawking at me everywhere I go. One of the other first years, Colin Creevy, has been really creepy, always trying to take my picture no matter what I'm doing. Makes me feel like I'm the subject of a _National Geographic_ article."

Luna giggled a little, the first sign of mirth since this encounter began, but then asked, "A what article?"

"Oh, sorry. It's a muggle magazine. They write and take pictures of a lot of things, but I mostly know about them from all the photographers that come to Monster Island. Speaking of magazines, how do I subscribe to the _Quibbler_? I meant to ask you on the train but I forgot."

That brought the smile back to Luna's face, and she explained to him how to owl order things in the wizarding world. Then, despite his pleas that it wasn't necessary (he tried not to bring up the size of his vault) she insisted that she'd get him a discount for his friendship.

They walked the halls together after Harry mentioned his other goal in exploring the castle – finding a place for practical study. Harry was under the invisibility cloak and Luna held his hand under it. Harry worried that people would think she was strange, seemingly holding hands with thin air, but she commented that people already thought she was strange. Harry had huffed at that, but Luna told him not to get worked up, so they walked around like that. Luna looked like she was walking and talking with thin air… but anyone close enough could hear that the thin air was talking back! Neither of them knew it, but this would counter some of the rumors about Luna's weirdness, replacing malice and gossip with honest curiosity.

Their walk eventually brought them to a place Harry couldn't believe he hadn't thought of earlier – the now not-so-forbidden corridor on the third floor. The traps were long gone, but the trap door was still there (although it now had a ladder), as were each of the chambers. It seemed that in changing schedules and locations to free up this area last year, the staff had simply decided that they did not need it at all, and it looked as if it were completely abandoned.

Harry and Luna went through every door into the very last chamber. The Mirror of… whatever it was that Dumbledore had placed here was gone as well, leaving nothing but a nice open area.

"This is the perfect place to cast spells without hurting anybody or getting in trouble!"

"What kind of spells are you practicing anyway Harry?"

Harry hesitated for only the briefest of moments, then showed her the three books he planned on working on most.

"These are all very advanced magic. You could hurt yourself if you're not careful."

"I know, but remember how I said that Vol- er, sorry, You-Know-Who was here last year? I figure that if he's still around and after me, I can't rely on ordinary schooling to protect me. I mean, even I can admit that last year I got a lucky shot and that's the only reason I'm alive."

Luna looked distressed at the idea of Harry's death and asked, "Harry… what exactly happened last year? It wasn't in the Daily Prophet, and you said that Daddy's guess of aquavirius maggots was wrong. Do you mind if I tell him your version of the story?"

"Well… I guess it can't hurt anyone. Are you sure that the _Quibbler_ will want this story?"

"It's not a Crumple-Horned Snorkack sighting no, but I think I could convince Daddy to write an article. So what happened?" Luna brought out a quill and parchment to begin taking notes.

"Well, you see, it starts out with the announcements before the welcoming feast. Dumbledore said that the corridor we're in right now was forbidden to anybody who didn't want to die a horrible death…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to address something that some people might see as an unnecessary break from canon. In the books, Luna is nonchalant about her missing items, but here she's almost in tears. That's because I had a moment of what TVTropes calls Fridge Horror: we don't meet Luna until she's in her fourth year; she's gotten used to the bullying by that point, which is why she can be so cavalier about missing so many of her things. In the books we never saw poor Luna having to adjust to having everything stolen from her and not getting help from anyone...


	18. Chapter 18

The only standout among the trio's classes this term was defense against the dark arts with Gilderoy Lockhart, but for all of the wrong reasons. Despite all of the great things he claimed to have done in his books he was definitely a failure as a teacher. Their first lesson was about pixies of all things, and he'd set them on the class saying that the only way to stop them was with a fake spell ( _Peskipiksi Pesternomi_ , really?), then locked himself in his office. Harry and Neville knew that the spell had to be fake, because _not even Hermione_ could make it work.

Harry had wound up testing the first of the fifty-two elemental curses, a weak vortex to pull all the mischievous pixies into a bag, and it had left him exhausted. When Hermione had found out where he'd learned the spell she had intermittently scolded him for taking unnecessary risks and begged him for a copy. Apparently wizarding money was considered to be worth quite a bit more than muggle money when switching currencies, so despite being rather well off in the muggle world Hermione's parents couldn't afford to indulge her voracious hunger for magical knowledge. Harry naturally agreed to owl order it for her when he sent out his letter asking for a _Quibbler_ subscription, and sent both orders out with his owl, who now responded to the name Hedwig.

A week later things got… interesting.

First, one evening after transfiguration finished, Professor McGonagall gave Harry a note summoning him to the headmaster's office. There was a nonsensical note on the bottom about the man being in the mood for toffee, which made Harry guess that that was the password.

Dumbledore's office was certainly interesting – a large circular room where the walls were covered in the portraits of previous headmasters and headmistresses, and several spindle-legged desks covered in silver instruments each making its own tiny noise and some emitting puffs of smoke. There was also a large desk in the center that Harry guessed belonged to Dumbledore, and on the shelf behind it sat the Sorting Hat. However, what caught Harry's attention was the elaborate perch off to one side – or rather, the bird that stood atop it.

"You!" Harry snarled. He was tempted to kill the bird for taking away his uncle, consequences be damned – and then it suddenly burst into flames!

"Ah, I wondered if that might happen tonight. A pity that you had to see it though. Fawkes is quite magnificent when it isn't a burning day."

Harry disliked the headmaster, but he was now so confused he didn't know what to think. Was it normal for the man's bird to spontaneously combust?

"Fawkes is a phoenix. When they reach old age rather than dying they burst into flames and are reborn from the ashes."

Dumbledore illustrated this, sifting through the pile of soot and cinders to lift out a small baby bird, which chirped happily now that it was in his hands. The chirping made Harry almost feel calm and happy… but those weren't Harry's emotions. Those were being… not entirely forced on him, but encouraged. Harry didn't like the subtle manipulation. Still, he would do his best to be polite; best to let manipulators think that they were being successful.

"Now Harry, Hagrid brought it to my attention that you are quite concerned about Jet Jaguar."

What Harry _wanted_ to say was "Really, you couldn't guess that I'd be concerned about my own uncle?" but what he _did_ say was, "Yes, sir. It's been months since I last saw him and I hope he's alright."

"He is indeed alright, but he is a muggle… I believe the term is 'roh-butt'? Regardless, when Fawkes brought him here to protect me the presence of so much magic damaged him. We have been repairing him for these past few months."

Harry forced a smile to his face while on the inside he wanted to scream. If Jet Jaguar had been damaged then the smart thing to do would have been to return him so that they could contact his original inventor and get him fixed by someone who knew exactly what they were doing. Who knew what kind of damage had been done?

"He is a robot, yes, but he is also my uncle. He can think, just like you and I, and I request on his behalf that you return him to Monster Island for any remaining repairs that need to be done."

There, even the Shobijin would be proud of how polite that was.

"I was unaware that he was sapient. I admit, I thought him an uncommonly intelligent golem, but that is neither here nor there. I would be happy to return him to Monster Island, but that brings me to the other issue I wanted to speak with you about: your living arrangements."

Harry did his best to keep his smile plastered in place as he replied, "I am happy, healthy, and safe on Monster Island, Headmaster. Until the owl that brought my Hogwarts letter, no one had ever found me despite the dangers described in the letter you left in my blanket."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he responded, "I am aware, and I believe that I acted too hastily on that day all those months ago, but Jet Jaguar and I have had many discussions since then regarding the specific dangers you may face now that you have returned to the wizarding world, and he has come to believe as I do that it would be best if you stay with your blood relatives to take full advantage of your mother's protection."

One of the silver instruments shattered as Harry wrestled with his anger. He would send the Shobijin a letter of apology for not following their lessons on manners, but he could not continue this farce.

"Now I know you're lying," he growled.

"Harry–"

His voice trembling with rage, Harry continued, "My uncle JJ would _never_ agree to let me stay with people who hated me, no matter what you did to him. He's a risk taker, and he would say to bring on all the threats in the world to protect me, and the same goes for everyone else in my family, and before you say anything else, those blood relatives are _not_ my family. Family loves you, helps you, protects you, and wants you. Those _people_ called all wizard-kind freaks while fully knowing that my birth parents were among them and were outraged that you wanted them to take me in."

Harry took a deep breath in an effort to calm himself. He failed, so he made one final proclamation. "Let me express myself clearly. If my robot uncle is still alive, I demand that you let him go, and whether he is or isn't let me make one thing crystal clear: there is no home for me other than Monster Island."

Another silver instrument shattered when Harry said that, and the twinkle vanished from Dumbledore's eyes. "I wish you hadn't said that. By renouncing your relatives' home you have just completely negated the blood wards."

"Good, then you have no more reason to interfere with where I choose to live. Good night, Headmaster. If my uncle really is still alive, I hope you'll let him go now that you have no more reason to try to manipulate me."

The second event happened the following day.

The next morning the headmaster gave no sign that he acknowledged the previous night's events, but the owl post arrived. Most students received a copy of the _Daily Prophet_ , but thanks to Harry's choice to wander invisibly while holding Luna's hand, there were more than a few copies of the _Quibbler_ as well.

Harry read his copy with great interest, and the first few articles brought a smile to his face. Part of him could almost understand people not believing in these creatures or conspiracies, but if nothing else they were entertaining. Then he got to page ten and by the sounds of gasping and screaming so did a bunch of other people.

Right there in large, bold font was the headline, "You-Know-Who, Hogwarts Professor? Harry Potter Talks of Truth, Trials, and Tribulations."

Harry could really only nod along as he read the article. It was almost entirely as he'd explained things to Luna, apart from a few edits where her father had gone back and put in details Harry had only mentioned later in his interview. It even went into some detail about the background. Apparently a break in at Gringotts had coincided with the day that a high-security vault had been emptied; Xenophilius Lovegood (Harry guessed that that was Luna's dad) could not prove anything, but speculated that the vault had housed the Philosopher's Stone.

One way or another, everything he'd talked about with Luna during the interview made it into the article, including seemingly unrelated things like Harry's statement that he'd never received any mail until his Hogwarts letter and still hadn't received any fan mail from anyone.

"Hello Harry. May I ask you something in addition to this question?"

"Hi Luna, of course you may."

"Would you mind breathing fire for me? Some of my housemates are calling us liars. They say that's impossible."

Harry grinned devilishly, then got on top of the Gryffindor table and then blasted blue flames into the air from his mouth.

The Great Hall went absolutely silent. Harry distinctly heard a pin drop, followed by someone (presumably George Weasley) whispering, "Hear that? Pay up Fred."

"Potter! Fifty points from Gryffindor and a week's detention for showing off!" bellowed a certain greasy git.

"I rescind those detentions and give a hundred points to Gryffindor for disproving one of the laws of magic!" Professor McGonagall shouted, just as loudly.

A whole bunch of things happened at once. Some people began stampeding towards Harry to talk to him, congratulate him, or find out how he did it. Others started reading the _Quibbler_ over their friends' shoulders, trying to gain insight from it. Harry almost got carried away by a tidal wave of Gryffindors who suddenly all wanted to be his best friend, and it took some kind of spell that sounded like a cannon blast from the headmaster to get everyone's attention. He did not look particularly happy, but all he said was that he wanted everyone to make sure they ate their breakfast because, earth-shaking discoveries or not, classes were still in session.

That brought a degree of order and sobriety to the hall, but Harry had already eaten and went to hang out with Luna at the Ravenclaw table, just in time for Professor Flitwick come down to ask what had all of his Ravenclaws aflutter before Harry's display. To the disgust of a Ravenclaw Harry recognized as one of Luna's bullies (and therefore to Harry's great delight) one of the younger ones pointed to Luna's copy of the _Quibbler_ and the article in question.

Flitwick's normally jovial face took on a rather grave expression as he neared the end of the article, the part about You-Know-Who and the obstacle course.

"Ms. Lovegood, may I borrow this? I shall return it before the day is over, but there I some points I believe that the staff needs to discuss."

"Of course Professor Flitwick."

There was too much noise in the hall for Harry to hear the conversation at the staff table, but it seemed that a great many of the staff were angry with the headmaster, who's serene demeanor had cracked even more. Even those who hadn't been part of the process of guarding the stone were reading the article and frowning more and more as they got closer to the end, until they too were arguing with Dumbledore. The only ones unaffected were Snape, who seemed to be as sour as ever – perhaps more so since McGonagall had overridden his punishment – and Gilderoy Lockhart, who seemed unaffected by anything that wasn't about himself.

Harry wondered what it was about the article that was upsetting all of them.


	19. Chapter 19

Albus Dumbledore wanted to believe that he was only having a bad twenty-four hours and that all these problems would go away soon, but he expected otherwise.

First, last night Harry had outright dismissed the Dursleys as family and completely negated the blood wards he established; there was now no way to get Harry into that household to properly mold his personality into the sweet-spot of self-worth where Harry would not be suicidal, but could easily be convinced to die for his home.

Now it seemed that the boy had gone to the press with the events of last year. This could not have been a response to last night – this Harry was prone to rash action, and an article like this would have taken time to prepare. No doubt Harry had simply struck up a conversation with Luna Lovegood and she had asked about last year.

Dumbledore was the headmaster of Hogwarts, the Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, and the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, not to mention a certified Grand Sorcerer. With the authority and weight of all these titles, when he'd told the press that the incident last year had been a tragic accident and nothing more, they had believed him. Now his only hope to escape multiple inquiries was to rely on the _Quibbler_ 's own reputation.

Arguably worse than that, the article had drawn the attention of the staff. The reason that they had agreed to protect the Philosopher's Stone in the first place was that they'd believed that the full extent of their talents would be put to use. They'd believed that Potter, Longbottom, and Granger were prodigies for getting past the puzzles; now the truth was out amongst them that he had lowered the difficulty and lethality of the obstacles to guarantee that Harry would confront the thief – although even Dumbledore had not known that Tom would be possessing Quirrell.

Dumbledore pinched the bridge of his nose. The staff did not trust him now. The only one he could rely on was Severus, and even that was not true loyalty, but rather blackmail material. Dumbledore was not as naive as he let on. He knew that Severus didn't regret anything he'd done as a Death Eater except that it had cost him the woman he most desired, Lily Evans Potter, and that the man would be quite happy to kill Harry, Neville, or really just about any of the students. No, Dumbledore kept Snape on a tight leash, and Severus tolerated it because they both knew that if it came out that it was information from him that made the Dark Lord target the Potters and Longbottoms, he'd be lynched in the streets.

He sighed as he sat at his desk and pet Fawkes. Harry had to choose to die for Wizarding Britain so that he could invoke the same sacrificial magic that his mother had and apply it to the entire population. That would break the power of the Dark-aligned families by rendering all of their spells useless, and then the country could enter a new golden age once the pureblood bigots inbred themselves to extinction. He'd planned for this to be a quiet year that would endear the magical world and Hogwarts in particular to Harry. Now those plans had gone up in flames.

At least it couldn't get any worse.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the formerly forbidden corridor, Harry and his friends were doing some independent studying. Harry, Neville, and Luna were all sharing Harry's copies of _The 52 Elemental Curses_ and _The Four Humours of Magick_. Hermione could read and understand things much faster, and so was reading the copies Harry had ordered for her on her own, periodically taking notes.

Luna was hanging around the trio as much as she could, something that made Harry happy for many reasons, some of which he still did not understand. Her things had stopped disappearing, if only because Harry quietly and invisibly kept making bad things happen to the people who took them. Some of the smarter Ravenclaws suspected that Luna's new friendship with Harry had something to do with all the unpleasant hexes plaguing their housemates, but far stronger than any house loyalty was a sense of self-preservation. Harry was apparently strong enough to break a hitherto unbroken law of magic by breathing fire without the aid of any sort of potion or enchantment; as the Hogwarts motto declared, one did not tickle a sleeping dragon.

"I think you'll like this ritual Harry. It sounds like something you'd need if the headmaster tries to abduct you again."

Hermione had taken time to accept that Dumbledore would do something as evil as take Harry away from the family he'd grown up with because of everything she'd read painting him as a great man, but Harry was her friend and had fought a troll for her. In the end, loyalty won out over book learning in her mind.

Harry flipped to the page she was on and read out, "The Rite of Anchoring is a Melancholic Ritual intended to imbue the soul of a magus with the immovability of mountain stones. Performed successfully, none may move the chosen magus by means of magick against his wishes, be the attacker's method wandwork, enchantment, or even a phoenix's fire…" The rest of the entry went on to detail the required materials and actions, along with some historical background. Apparently, this ritual had been quite common before the witch hunts, but the unintended result was that many families and friends could not save those who had performed the ritual for themselves, and had no choice but to abandon them to their fates. The end result was that it had fallen from favor and been largely forgotten by the time of the book's creation, when the unknown author decided to gather as much forgotten lore as possible to be preserved against the ever-burying sands of time.

"It sounds easy as rituals go, but where are we going to find a stone that hasn't moved in a long time?" Neville asked. "How would we even know if we found one?"

Luna was the one to make the startlingly obvious suggestion, "It says the stone needs to have been in a magical place for a long time. Hogwarts is made of stone and has stood for a thousand years. We could just select any of the stones in the walls and use that for the ritual. We just need to make sure it isn't home to any gulping plimpies first."

Harry simply nodded even as his other two friends gave Luna another odd look.

"Harry, I have to say that this book is quite large," this statement coming from Hermione made Harry and Neville gawk at her. They had seen her definition of "light reading."

"Oh, don't look at me like that, I just mean its charmed to have more pages than it ought to be able to hold. How are you ever going to be able to find helpful rituals in a timely manner?"

Harry hadn't actually realized that, or thought about that problem. He attempted to shrug it off, saying, "It can't be that bad. The book only goes on until page," here he flipped the book over and opened the back cover, "…two-thousand-seventy-three. Never mind, you have a point."

"Well, you could always let magic decide." And before any of them could ask Luna what she meant, she sent a weak gust of wind at the book, opening it and blowing a multitude of pages to the other side of the book.

Realizing that Luna meant what muggles called dumb luck, Harry looked to the entry most prominent on the page the book opened to and read, "The Rite of Rippling Fate is a Phlegmatic Ritual that essentially implores the entities variously known as the Moirai, Parcae, Sudice, Nornir, or Fates to lessen the burden on an individual…" It went on to describe a ludicrously complex ritual that could only be performed near a large body of water during a full moon that required many rare and expensive ingredients, and some manner of sacrifice. It did not require a blood sacrifice, but an emotional one; the person to benefit from the ritual would have to surrender an object they loved dearly, for the Fates – or whatever impersonal force they represented – could not be swayed save by an intense display of love and sacrifice.

The entry ended with a note, seemingly written by someone else. Harry couldn't place why, but the diction and word choices just felt different. Regardless, the note said that destiny had never been conclusively proven to exist, and that innumerable prophecies had been created and then never fulfilled for one reason or another. Some prophecies were fulfilled by accident, others by choice, and more still set in motion by those attempting to change their foretold fate. According to the writer of the note, there were two things that appeared to drive a prophecy – belief and action. A prophecy believed in had a greater chance of occurring than one that was dismissed, but a prophecy acted upon – to achieve or defy did not seem to matter – had a far greater chance succeed and thus perpetuate belief in fate and divination.

For some reason, the entry on the Rite of Rippling Fate disturbed all of them, but none more so than Harry. He'd had a horrible thought as he read the ritual requirements; it did not need a blood sacrifice, but it also did not forbid it. Was this the ritual that his parents had used to keep him alive? If Fate could be changed through love and sacrifice, would the deaths of two people for their child be enough to save an infant from certain doom? It couldn't possibly be, his parents had died on Halloween, and the full moon prior to that had been… a week previously. And they certainly couldn't stall the sacrifice in a ritual… could they?

The Fates were moved by love and sacrifice. Was it possible that they had been so moved by the thought of Harry's parents offering up their lives on his behalf that they had been willing to wait for their payment?

As Harry thought all this through his friends simply watched him and waited. Something about the look on his face told them that it would be wrong to interrupt. Finally, he released a breath he hadn't known he was holding and conjured a ribbon as black as his thoughts to use as a bookmark. The Rite of Rippling Fate disturbed him, but someday it could be useful.

* * *

At the same time, Arthur Weasley was putting the finishing touches on Jet Jaguar.

"There, now you should be able to function perfectly for Professor Dumbledore when he comes to get you!"

As the eccentric tinkerer left, Jet Jaguar tested his fine motor control, everything from simply wiggling his fingers to performing a few celebratory flips and somersaults, earning a few soft honks he believed was a form of quiet applause from the Ford Anglia. He still couldn't remember how to make himself grow, but he could leave at any time if he wanted to… but now he couldn't, not because he was incapable, but because he needed to stick to his plan.

He suspected that Dumbledore would take him to his office, believing him to be firmly under magical control. While Dumbledore's status as a wizard made him unique, Jet Jaguar had encountered his type before. The headmaster no doubt believed his office to be unassailable, and it would contain the documents detailing his actions and plans. The only problem was the bird. Fawkes, as he'd heard it was called, needed to be taken out quickly, before it could teleport away and warn its master. Jet Jaguar didn't doubt that he could do that, it was a simple matter of shattering its bones, and he was capable of that, he just hadn't thought he'd needed to all those months ago.

He reviewed his plan over and over as he waited. Get into the office, kill the bird, then begin searching for the most securely locked drawer or safe in the room. Then, depending on the precise architecture of the room, either fly out the window with the evidence, or fight his way out of the castle. The second option was extremely risky, but if the office had no windows then it was a risk he had to take.

Suddenly, Mr. Weasley came back into the garage, set to get tinkering again.

"Apparently, the headmaster doesn't need you anymore. Said the ICW had figured out the problem and sent him a new one, but he gave you to me as compensation for all the time I spent working on you. Now, for a golem you have a lot of muggle parts in you, so now that you're mine, I think I'll have to take you apart. Maybe this time I'll finally figure out how eckeltricity works!"

Jet Jaguar discovered that he had the emotional capacity to wish he had a way of vocally cursing. The plan was no longer going to work. There was only one way out now: violence.

He dashed forward and karate chopped the man in the temple. Jet Jaguar had heard enough from Arthur during his work to know that he was a good man, he just didn't know what he'd gotten into. That strike would leave him out cold just long enough for him to flee.

As he began making for the door, the car pulled towards him, honking desperately. It seemed that the Ford Anglia wanted to be free. The android almost left the vehicle behind, but then he remembered something Hagrid had mentioned over a year ago: Hogwarts' wards prevented speedy entry, so he wouldn't be able to fly there at mach three in the first place.

Deciding to damn the consequences, Jet Jaguar hopped into the semi-sapient vehicle and started driving. They burst out of the garage, and the robot pressed the buttons the car highlighted, which made it turn invisible and begin flying respectively.

They set off for the Scottish Highlands, Jet Jaguar focused on getting justice, and the Ford Anglia focused on its newfound freedom.


	20. Chapter 20

Harry was currently sitting in history of magic, daydreaming rather than listen to Professor Binns. The past few weeks had been eventful to say the least.

First, the article in the _Quibbler_ had made the rounds, and people kept asking him if it was true. Harry always confirmed it, resulting in many requests for his autograph until he'd taken to wearing his invisibility cloak while traveling from class to class. Yes, this advertised its existence, but it got him away from annoying fans. He considered that an even trade. Still, nothing else might have come of the article since it was not widely read by the wizarding public, except for one Gilderoy Lockhart.

Lockhart himself did nothing (what else was new) but girlish crushes on him led to odd friendships: case in point, his friend Hermione Granger and her new bestie (ever since it became clear that Harry and Neville would not take defense seriously) Hufflepuff Susan Bones.

Susan had gotten the article (after what appeared to have been a dozen changed hands) from her other best friend Hannah Abbott, and – like everybody else – wanted to know if it was true, but not for "oh-Harry-that's-amazing-be-my-friend" reasons, but deeply personal ones.

A lot of Susan's family had died during the last war, and apparently her aunt Amelia was now the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. If Voldemort was still out there, her aunt was living on borrowed time because of her position. Susan asked him point blank if he'd be willing to testify that You-Know-Who was alive, because hunting down dark wizards was her aunt's job, but all signs pointed to her not even knowing that he was still out there.

Harry did mention Luna's theory that it might have been a convincing fake, but said that he was fairly convinced that it had been Voldemort. Susan was not happy with this, but after a moment put on a brave face and said that Harry could let her aunt decide about that in an official capacity; all he needed was permission from his guardian to leave for a day.

That led to another discussion about guardians and communication. Jet Jaguar was missing or dead after his run in with Dumbledore, the Shobijin were too far away for owl post, and Godzilla couldn't write anyway, so how was he to get permission in the first place?

His question led to more of her questions and back and forth until they were both so confused that Susan just agreed to send a copy of the _Quibbler_ to her aunt along with a signed statement from Harry that it was true to the best of his knowledge.

A few days later a stern looking woman wearing a monocle arrived with a number of guards – apparently called aurors, the magical police – with warrants to question Dumbledore, the staff, and Harry.

Susan was happy to see her aunt, Dumbledore was panicked by the sudden arrival, and Harry was confused that the warrant included him.

The greatest obstacles to Amelia's questioning were Harry's honest ignorance and Dumbledore's political power, but where the headmaster was evasive, Harry was just confused.

Harry told her everything as he knew it: his robot uncle Jet Jaguar had found him in a basket outside a house on Halloween night and taken him to Monster Island for safety. When he'd grown up a bit, his extended family had shown him the letter Dumbledore left and how it talked about Death Eaters and Voldemort being alive. He hadn't gotten any mail from anyone – ever – except for his Hogwarts letter. And he detailed everything about his first year except for Hagrid's dragon. When Harry got to the part about Voldemort, Amelia called over one of the aurors and sent them back to the ministry to get something called a Pensieve, which turned about to be an enchanted stone bowl capable of showing copies of memories. With coaching from Amelia, Harry extracted his own memory of the entire night and put it into the bowl. He also asked if he could place one more memory in there, since he might have witnessed something illegal, and Amelia told him to put that in too; he placed his memory of the abduction of Jet Jaguar.

After that, Amelia thanked him for his cooperation and sent him on his way. Then she started to question the staff. Hagrid was conflicted, but cooperated rather than risk being arrested – Azkaban was a truly horrible place. Having read the article, McGonagall, Flitwick, and Sprout were all cooperative because of their anger at their deception. They were not comfortable sharing their memories, but answered every question to the best of their ability, going as far as adding background and elaboration, including detailing the argument that the article had triggered.

Snape was oppositional throughout the interrogation, as everyone expected. He would not part with his memories, he would say nothing to incriminate himself or the headmaster, and because Occlumency at least partly countered Veritaserum Amelia could not force him to say anything. She moved on to Dumbledore relatively quickly.

The headmaster was also an Occlumens, so truth serum was out, and even for a determined and experienced interrogator like Amelia, it was like pulling teeth. The headmaster was evasive and obfuscatory about what he did and did not know and when.

Several weeks later, Harry received a letter from Madam Bones herself. It started off by thanking him for his cooperation and that his memories had been determined by experts to be legitimate and unaltered, and yet more experts had determined that Harry had encountered some manner of wraith. Comparisons to war memories determined that the spirit was indeed the one called Voldemort, but it was being kept quiet to avoid causing a panic; it wasn't a secret, it just wasn't being broadcast.

It continued with an apology. While she acknowledged that Dumbledore had indeed abducted Harry's robot uncle, under ministry laws as they were, no artificial construct – muggle or magical – was a person, and since Harry claimed that the robot wasn't his property, neither theft nor kidnapping had occurred in the memory and there was nothing she could do about it.

And so as Binns ended the nap time that passed for a history class, Harry trudged out slowly and sadly. Earlier in the week he'd turned down Nearly Headless Nick's invitation to his Deathday Party. He wanted to bury his sorrows in a mountain of food and when he'd asked about the menu the list that the ghost provided had been deeply unappetizing.

As always, the feast in the Great Hall was a smorgasbord of culinary delights. Exotic smells and flavors that there was no way for Harry to describe, only to enjoy.

Once the feast ended, Harry trundled, stuffed to bursting, alongside his friends and the rest of the student body until that body came to a sudden halt as someone near the front screamed.

"What's going on?" Harry was immediately in full defensive mode, prepared to cast and burn in equal measure.

Before the answer could ripple back through the crowd to Harry, Argus Filch came demanding to know what all the ruckus was about… and then suddenly roared in rage.

"MY CAT! MRS. NORRIS IS DEAD! WHICH OF YOU LITTLE MONSTERS MURDERED MY CAT?! I"LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL ALL OF YOU! I"LL–"

" _Argus_!"

Dumbledore had been lured by the noise along with many of the other teachers.

So Mrs. Norris was dead. That was bound to bring jubilation to much of the student body. That cat was among the most hated animals in Hogwarts' history.

"Argus, come with me. This is not for the students' eyes."

Lockhart looked about to step forward, no doubt to say something stupid, but he was cut off by Professors McGonagall and Flitwick. Snape was scowling but keeping quiet, and after shifting slightly Harry could see that it was because he was protecting those in front – apparently Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, and a few other Slytherins were the first arrivals.

"So that you can cover up the incident like all of last year's fiasco? No Albus, there is no diagnostic spell you can't perform right here."

For a moment so brief Harry almost thought he imagined it, Dumbledore's grandfatherly mask slipped and he looked genuinely angry, but faster than a blink it was gone, replaced by something bordering on amusement.

The students and staff watched with rapt attention as the Headmaster murmured strange words while tapping Mrs. Norris, even as Filch clutched her oddly stiff body and sobbed. Lockhart was making the situation worse by talking about all the different curses that probably killed her and how he could have prevented it had he been there.

"She's not dead, Argus." Dumbledore stated.

A murmur passed through the crowd, and for once Filch spoke for everyone as he asked, "Not dead? Then why's she all-" he gestured helplessly, "stiff and frozen?"

"She has been Petrified. ("I knew it!" Lockhart shouted.) Though how I cannot say."

"Ask him!" Filch snarled viciously, pointing past Snape to Malfoy. "He was right here, inspecting his handiwork on the wall!"

Snape's eyes narrowed at the caretaker as he replied, "Talented as Mr. Malfoy is, no second year is capable of such powerful Dark Magic."

Malfoy looked like he wanted to protest that, but a glance from Snape preemptively silenced him.

"We will be able to cure her, Argus" Dumbledore reassured in his maddeningly grandfatherly voice, "As soon as Pomona's mandrakes have reached full size, a potion can be made."

Mandrakes. Harry hated working with the things. His instincts screamed that the neither plant nor animal beings were unnatural, and their killing shriek only solidified this opinion, but now breaking into the greenhouse and setting fire to them was out of the question.

The students were ushered to their dorms and Harry slept fitfully. There had been a strange smell as he'd walked past the scene, equal parts familiar and alien, and it gave him a strange sense of oncoming doom.

He had a bad feeling that this year's mystery had much more at stake than the last.


	21. Chapter 21

November came, and with it the Quidditch season. Harry’s exercise regimen conflicted with practice times or he’d have tried out, but as it was he’d be content with watching the games. He did need to root for the Gryffindor team after all: Malfoy had bought his way onto the Slytherin team with a set of Nimbus Two-Thousand-and-Ones, and Harry felt he could do with a good humbling. He had tried to get Hagrid in trouble last year, to say nothing of the way he spoke about muggleborns all the time.

The match began and Harry immediately picked out the Golden Snitch. He wished that he could communicate that to the Gryffindor seeker, but there was just no way to do so without cheating.

He’d have liked to keep track of it as a challenge, but his senses – trained from years on Monster Island – detected danger, and he instinctively dodged.

An iron ball – the Bludger, Harry remembered – smashed through the bleachers where he’d been sitting just a moment ago.

The audience around him panicked and started moving away from him. Bludgers weren’t supposed to be able to enter the stands after all.

Harry looked into the hole leading to the scaffolding that held up the stands.

Malfoy – apparently the Slytherin Seeker now – stopped playing the sport to mock Harry.

“What’s wrong Potter, never seen a hole on that savage island?”

Harry ignored him to dodge the Bludger that came zooming out of the darkness.

It crashed into Malfoy’s gut and nearly knocked him off his broom. Harry didn’t care for the little bigot, but what if that had been someone who mattered, like Hermione or Neville, or an innocent bystander?

As the Slytherin team called a time-out to make sure Malfoy could stay on his broom, Harry made an impulsive decision. The only way to avoid casualties was to go where there was no one around to get hurt. He dove into the scaffolding below.

It was dim, but not overly so. Harry could see just fine – he’d navigated darker parts of the jungles of his island home – but it was all sharp angles rather than smooth transitions like the trees he was used to. He heard the telltale whooshing sound and jumped to the next “branch.” There was probably another word for what he was climbing, but he was thinking of them as artificial branches for now.

He couldn’t outpace the Bludger, but Harry noticed that when it missed him it stopped to launch itself back towards him. That gave him a moment to decide his move between attacks. Harry heard it coming at him again and dropped down, catching himself on the next layer of scaffolding. If he could get to the ground he could dodge it indefinitely. The problem was that Quidditch was played extremely high up… he had a long way to go.

Harry leapt sideways and dropped down. The Bludger got closer that time because his planning had made him mistime the jump. It wouldn’t happen again. He dropped down and leapt backwards, allowing the bludger to crash behind him. It occurred to Harry that he needed to keep it from destroying the entire scaffolding or the stands might collapse with people still up there. He needed to gamble…

Allowing it to break one more wooden beam, Harry climbed up so he was standing atop of another. This would be riskier, but cause less damage if it worked.

The iron ball rushed at him again and Harry quickly pressed himself to one side, nearly losing his balance, but stabilizing in time to leap down to the next level before the Bludger could launch at him. He did this again, and again, and again until he lost count and finally arrived on the ground floor.

He stepped out of the decorative stand cover onto the Quidditch pitch. He took a moment to scan his surroundings. Apparently the game was still on even down a Bludger.

A buzzing by his ear caught his attention and Harry looked over to see the Snitch fluttering by his head.

“MOVE POTTER!” cried a voice Harry didn’t know.

Both the Gryffindor seeker (a sixth-year Harry didn’t know) and Malfoy had seen the Snitch and were racing towards him. Harry dove out of the way–

–Directly into the path of the rogue Bludger!

There was a sickening crunch as Harry felt his arm snap, but Harry did see a swell consolation prize before he passed out: as he did his best to use his other arm to deflect the Bludger to avoid hurting him more, he inadvertently sent it at Malfoy, destroying his precious Nimbus 2001 and his hopes of catching the Snitch.

* * *

 

Harry woke quickly as he heard a lot of shouting.

“He interfered, that shouldn’t count!”

“The Bludger left the game and we continued. Then it came back. If anything, that’s the only part of the game that counted!”

Harry almost grinned despite the pain. Of course the Slytherins were complaining now that they’d lost. Then he heard a voice that chilled his broken bones.

“Move aside,” Lockhart yelled, “out of the way, I’m here to save the day!”

“Oh no, not you!”

“He’s delirious from the pain! I’ll fix him up in a jiffy!”

And then the nominal professor tap Harry’s arm with his wand. The pain proceeded to vanish, and then Harry’s arm sagged at an odd angle.

“Whoops, got the angle wrong,” the professor shrugged.

Harry flopped his arm around, momentarily stunned by what had happened.

“You idiot! I have no arm bones now!”

Harry started huffing and puffing flames, the arrival of Madam Hooch – who’d only just finished settling the Quidditch teams’ dispute in Gryffindor’s favor – prevented him from doing anything rash as she ushered everyone away and sent Harry off to the hospital wing.

Madam Pomfrey was just as upset as Harry, but she was also upset at Harry.

“You should’ve come straight to me! I can heal broken bones in a snap, but regrowing them will take all night!”

She threw some pajamas at him and with nothing better to do, Harry struggled into them, angling his rubbery arm down a sleeve first and then putting everything else on.

When he finished, Madam Pomfrey came back with a jar labeled “Skele-Grow” and told him to open up. When he did, she stuffed a spoonful of foul tasting powder into his mouth and told him to try to sleep, and that with any luck he’d be out through the worst of it.

Harry felt the first twinges of sensation in his arm, but he’d felt worse during his training regimen, so he went to sleep easily.

* * *

 

Once more, he awoke to the sound of someone creeping about nearby. Harry sat up, snarling and found himself staring at a pair of large eyes that could only belong to Dobby.

“Harry Potter broke his promise!” the house elf hissed.

“First, I had my fingers crossed, and second, how would you know if you weren’t spying on me?”

Dobby first looked confused, and then like he wanted to say something, only to start bashing his head against the bedside.

“Stop that!” Harry snarled, “Do you want to wake the entire hospital wing?”

“Dobby must not say bad things about Dobby’s master!”

“Oh, so your master said something bad about me? Maybe about me sending a Bludger at him? Or perhaps his son?”

Dobby’s eyes appeared to grow wider.

“How did Harry Potter know?” he asked in awe.

Smirking, Harry replied, “You just told me.”

Dobby hit his head against the bedframe even harder this time.

“I’m guessing that was your bludger. Were you ordered to kill me?”

Dobby gasped in what looked like genuine horror. “Dobby is here on to save Harry Potter, not kill… only maim or seriously injure.”

Harry suddenly remembered what the house elf had said those months ago. His eyes narrowed, “You know who’s behind the attacks, don’t you?”

Dobby looked nervous and nodded.

“And I’m betting your master told you not to tell anyone, right?”

Dobby nodded again, seeming encouraging.

“Think of his exact words. Did he say you could not _tell_ anyone, or that you could not _say_ anything?"

Dobby smiled, but before he could act on this newfound knowledge he heard something and disappeared with a soft popping sound. Harry immediately lay flat on his back pretending to sleep. He kept his eyes slightly open and saw Pomfrey, McGonagall, and Dumbledore wheeling in another bed.

Harry didn’t even need to hear them say the name; he knew that camera anywhere by now. Colin Creevy had been petrified.

“Do you think he may have captured a picture of his attacker?”

Without a word the headmaster pried the camera from the junior paparazzo’s hands and opened it to extract the film, only to be met with a loud hissing sound and a cloud of acrid smoke. Any film had been utterly destroyed by whatever had petrified Colin.

There were some hushed whispers that Harry couldn’t quite hear, only catching Dumbledore saying, “I fear that the Chamber of Secrets truly has been opened again…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m back! Did you miss me? Because I missed you. I know a lot of you must be wondering where the hell I’ve been. The short answer is hell. The long answer is a soul draining job that I am now quitting in pursuit of a better one. But that’s enough about me.
> 
> I apologize for the low quality of this chapter, especially after such a long wait, but between my job and writers’ block, this chapter gave me enormous headaches and I just want to be done with it. I solemnly swear that I am up to no good that the next chapter will be much, much better.
> 
> I’d also like to direct you all to my Tumblr, (Gojirahkiin dot blah blah you know how to use the Internet, right?) because I can’t beg for money here but I can over there.


	22. Chapter 22

Harry met up with Neville and Hermione the following day, after proving to Madam Pomfrey's satisfaction that his arm had regrown its bones correctly - an arduous task involving a fair amount of dexterity. Apparently the problem was not regrowing bone; it was regrowing it exactly as it had been so it didn't damage any nerves or blood vessels.

"Harry, how's your arm? I hear that Skele-grow isn't the nicest experience."

Harry shrugged, "Good as new, but a little stiff because I couldn't really move it deliberately at all last night. I've been through worse though."

"After last year that isn't an encouraging statement."

Harry laughed at that, replying, "Fair point. But have you heard yet? Colin Creevy got petrified last night!"

Hermione and Neville nodded.

"The school is buzzing with speculation about what happened and what's going to be done about it. People are really worried for their safety."

"Speaking of safety," Harry began, then realized they were still near the hospital wing and under potential eyes and ears of the staff, "…we should go back to the common room, in case whatever did it is still lurking around."

The pair glanced at him, since that didn't sound like his normal, courageous self, but they followed him back to Gryffindor tower without questioning it too much.

Once safe and secure in their favorite nook of the red and gold decorated room, Neville was first to demand, "Alright, spill, who are you and where is the real Harry?"

Harry chuckled saying, "Relax guys, it's me, I just didn't want to be spied on when I told you this. Remember that house elf I told you about at the beginning of the year? He showed up again."

From there Harry relayed the details of what had happened, and how he had determined the identity of Dobby's master.

"Very smooth Harry, but you could have told him not to hit himself," Hermione complained.

"First, he broke my arm. Second, I don't think that would've worked since I'm not his master." But feeling guilty he looked toward Neville, "Right?"

Neville nodded.

Hermione huffed, "Alright, but what are we going to do with this information?"

Neville looked uncomfortable, but said, "I'm not sure we can do anything."

The other two looked at him incredulously.

"I don't like the idea of not doing anything either, but…" he paused and sighed, "Gran says our family has never been like this, but a lot of the older families don't pay any real mind to house elves. I don't think your word that Dobby is abused and that he knows Malfoy is up to something will do much good."

Hermione looked aghast, but Harry was contemplative, and asked, "But what if it isn't just my word? What if it's my memory?"

Now it was Hermione and Neville's turn to give Harry an odd look.

"Hermione, do you happen to have an empty ink bottle? I have an idea."

Trusting him implicitly, Hermione reached into her bag and fished one out, casting a little spell to clear it out of residual ink. Looking around, Harry then remembered what Madam Bones had told him earlier in the year and pulled a pair of silvery memory strands from his head. He put them into the bottle and then plugged it up, before reaching into his own bag for writing materials.

"Harry, what was that and what are you doing?"

"Remember when Susan's aunt showed up with all the aurors? She coached me through submitting memories as evidence. My word might not be enough to get anything done, but my memories and testimony might."

The pair just gawked at him as he completed his noted, and Harry rolled it up and handed both the ink and bottle to Hermione. "Could you give these to Susan when you next see her? I'd do it myself but passing notes during herbology might look a little weird…" He trailed off, slightly embarrassed. He could handle the prospect of something roaming the school and petrifying people, but rumors about him passing love letters during class? Nope.

* * *

Shortly before Christmas break, with rumors and accusations about the identity of the Heir of Slytherin flying back and forth amongst the students, signs began appearing advertising a Dueling Club. Harry and Neville were wary because it seemed like the kind of stunt Lockhart would pull, but to support Hermione they went. Besides, there was always the slim chance that a more competent professor was putting it on, right?

Unfortunately both were true in the worst of ways. It was indeed Gilderoy Lockharts show, but he had somehow roped Snape of all professors into helping him.

Shockingly though, they did manage to teach something. On the count of three atop an improvised stage, Lockhart made ridiculous flailing motions with his wand, while Snape simply aimed and snarled, " _Expelliarmus_!" and Lockhart's wand, as well as Lockhart himself, went flying.

Lockhart got up, made some excuse about wanting to show people the Disarming Charm, and then decided to start pairing students up to practice.

"We should split up." Harry murmured.

Looking as though he might have been petrified himself, Neville asked, "What? Why?"

"Snape's going to split us up by force, we both know it, but if at least one of us is near Lockhart we might get paired up with people who don't hate our guts."

Neville looked reluctant, but nodded. He and Hermione left Harry behind, and Harry himself remained where he was; if Malfoy or another bigot showed up, he'd look like lonely bait.

As it was, Harry's instincts were correct. Since Lockhart reached them first, Hermione was paired up with Parvati's twin Padma, and Neville was paired up with Ron, which might not have been great but also wasn't an unmitigated disaster. However, Snape had not-so-subtly made a beeline for Harry, breaking up pairs of friends on his way.

"Mr. Potter, alone at last are you?"

Snape was attempting to loom threateningly, but Harry glared back refusing to be cowed. What was he going to do anyway? Out himself as a dark wizard? Short of that all he could do was pair him up with Malfoy and Harry figured he was going to anyway; all the hatred in the world wouldn't stop Snape from being just as predictable as any other bully.

A vein in Snape's temple seemed to throb as if in response to Harry's thoughts, but he did indeed call Malfoy over, leaving Harry feeling equal parts resigned and smug.

Lockhart called out, "Remember, disarm only, and begin!"

Naturally Malfoy did not cast a single disarming charm, but hair simply sidestepped the heavily-telegraphed stinging spells so that they'd hit Malfoy's fellow Slytherins, a fact that didn't seem to deter Malfoy at all.

"Hold still Scarhead!"

"Aim better Inbred."

Thrity seconds of absolute chaos later Lockhart shouted, "Stop! STOP!" He actually looked angry for a moment before pasting that smile back on his face and saying, "Perhaps we should do this differently eh? How about a student demonstration. Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy, come up here please."

Malfoy went up to Snape who leaned down and whispered something that prompted Draco to smile. Harry, stuck with Lockhart, received, "Now, when he goes to cast, do this," at which point Lockhart flailed a bit before dropping his wand. "Whoops, now off you go then!"

Harry rolled his eyes and prepared to dodge whatever Malfoy fired at him.

"On three boys. One, two-"

" _Serpensortia_!"

A snake - a venomous one going by coloration - shot out of Malfoy's wand landing between them. Harry was rather unimpressed.

"Don't move Mr. Potter," Snape said, looking smug.

"I got it!" Lockhart called. He then fired something at the snake that blasted it towards the audience and agitated it.

Harry acted instinctively, and before it could strike at the nearby Hufflepuff - Justin Finch-Fletchley if Harry recalled - he yanked on its tail to pull it towards himself. The serpent whirled on him and Harry said, "Calm down," at which point the snake relaxed and a hush fell over the audience.

Harry looked around as he gathered up the placid snake, which flicked its tongue out and hissed to him, "I smell their fear… really that's not me, I promise."

Harry could see the fear too and was about to reply to it, but Snape dispelled it. He was giving Harry a calculating look, and murmurs were starting to break out. Lockhart seemed gobsmacked into silence. Harry left, the wall of students parting before him. Perhaps it was time to start wearing the invisibility cloak.

* * *

"I told you back in first year that people think Parseltongue is a dark art." Neville said, a few days later on in their study area.

"I know, I know, but I never realized they thought it was this bad." Harry replied.

When people saw him they recoiled in fear. Fred and George, ever the jokesters, warded him off with garlic and religious implements (though they did make clear later that they were joking), and one person even saw him coming out of the loo and screamed.

"You're not helping when you lurk about in the invisibility cloak you know," Hermione added.

"I get tired of people staring at me like I'm about to sprout fangs and spit venom."

"I think they're more worried about you spitting fire to be honest," Luna commented.

Harry was infinitely grateful to Luna for not being afraid of him after the revelation that he was a Parselmouth made the rounds in the school rumor mill. By the end of day people were talking about how the snake had been too large to fit in the room properly and had nearly eaten everyone before Dumbledore had arrived to banish it.

"At least it can't possibly get worse…"

* * *

Later in the week, Harry heard that the rumors were growing ever larger because Justin of all people was continually embellishing the tale. Harry was looking for him to set things straight, but that was when things did take a turn for the worse.

Between classes Harry heard something.

"Rip… tear… kill…"

The voice seemed to be coming from the wall, and Harry followed it as far as he could, until he saw something that made his blood run cold.

Justin Finch-Fletchley was standing frozen, a look of utter terror on his face, but far, far more frightening was the immobilized and charred looking Nearly Headless Nick floating right in front of him. What manner of magic or monster could do such damage to a ghost?

There was also that strange smell, just like when Mrs. Norris had been attacked, but why did it tug at his memory?

Then at the worst moment Peeves appeared from a nearby classroom, dusting off his hands as if he'd just finished a fine piece of work.

"Well, well, ickle Harry Potty all alone in the-"

Peeves froze as he saw Nick's equal parts scorched and frozen form.

Harry made placating gestures but Peeves screamed, "ATTACK! ATTACK! THERE'S BEEN AN ATTACK! NO MORTAL OR GHOST IS SAFE!"

Doors began opening and shutting as some people barricaded themselves in rooms and others stormed out to investigate. The first to come upon the scene was Professor McGonagall, her entire curious class in tow.

* * *

That night, Harry was confined to Gryffindor tower.

"Harry, what happened in the past few hours?" Hermione half demanded, half pleaded.

"I know you're not the attacker Harry, so what's going on?"

"Well…" Harry began, "I kind of lost my cool…"

* * *

Professor McGonagall, after sending her class back to their common rooms, had lead him up to Dumbledore's office, saying that whether he was the attacker or not, the incriminating nature of the scene took matters out of her hands.

Harry sat in the office alone, glaring daggers at Fawkes, who did not reciprocate but seemed indifferent to his presence.

Dumbledore arrived shortly thereafter and sat down at his desk across from Harry.

They sat there in silence for a time. Harry had heard all about how manipulators liked to use awkward silences to make people talk. Harry liked the quiet though - he could think things through.

"Well Harry, is there anything you would like to tell me?" the Headmaster asked at last.

Harry icily replied, "I came upon that scene as it was. Unless you'd like to tell me where my Uncle Jet Jaguar is, we have nothing to further to discuss."

Dumbledore sighed heavily, "Harry, you realize that we have only your word that you are not responsible. In a situation as incriminating as this, that may not be enough…" he trailed off, no doubt so that Harry's mind could fill in the blanks with all sorts of unpleasant prospects.

Harry wasn't afraid though, and called his bluff. "If you believe I'm guilty, go ahead and expel me. I have a home and a family that loves me to go back to.  _I am not afraid of you_."

"Well I should certainly hope not Harry, but I am not the one to be afraid of. If you are not the guilty party, we are allies in this - we both want to catch the true culprit."

Harry glared at the Headmaster, barely suppressing a growl. Speaking with sparks flying from his mouth Harry snarled, "You tried to send me to a family that would abuse me, abducted my uncle, and tried to use your hold on him to leverage me into obeying you. You may do your worst headmaster, because we  _are not allies_!"

* * *

"And after that he placed me under tower arrest pending an official investigation." Harry finished.

"Oh, Harry, why did you do that?" Hermione cried.

Neville patted his shoulder but shook his head. "That wasn't the best idea mate."

Harry shrugged, "The pieces may fall where they may, but I am nobody's puppet, and I will not submit to such a role. We'll just have to say what the day brings."

* * *

The next morning brought a shock is what it did though. The  _Quibbler_  had gotten quite a few subscribers with Harry's official interview, but this one would get many more for the  _Daily Prophet_.

_Lucius Malfoy Behind Chamber of Secrets Attacks! House Elf Star Witness!_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Note** : Hello everyone! Did you miss me? I know it's been a while, but I've been struggling with real-life issues and experimenting with other hobbies. But writing is my true calling, and so here I am once again! My apologies for the cliffhanger here, but all chapters must end at some point. Here's hoping that there is never a hiatus as long as that again.
> 
> Speaking of which, you, yes you behind the screen, can help prevent that! I'm making a Discord server for my fans to congregate so that I can actually see all the people who loved this story. Because when other people get hyped up about my writing, I get hyped up about my writing too! If you have a Discord account, just click this link after pasting it into your app: <https://discord.gg/PfGmbgk>. I hope to see you all there, including you and especially you!


	23. Chapter 23

Confined to Gryffindor Tower as he was, Harry still smiled as he read the article.

His memories had apparently been enough evidence to launch a raid on Malfoy Manor, and even to bring a renowned auror (apparently a magical police officer) by the name of Alastor “Mad Eye” Moody out of retirement. From there Dobby had taken the lead, subtly guiding them towards dark artifacts, including a mother load in a magically concealed cellar.

Lucius had apparently slipped an unknowing student (left unnamed for their own protection) a cursed diary that had once belonged to Voldemort, which was enchanted to open the Chamber of Secrets and release the monster within.

Topping it off, Dobby had been freed using an old, little used or remembered law because Lucius had verified under veritaserum that he abused the house elf.

And once freed, Dobby had had revenge. Apparently he’d used his freedom to help interrogate Lucius!

Lucius wasn’t just _not_ a victim of the Imperius curse, but a willing follower of Voldemort who’d been part of the villain’s inner circle. Narcissa did not herself have the Dark Mark (apparently a tattoo given to all of Voldemort’s most loyal followers), but sympathized completely with the group, and Draco had been brought up with the same toxic beliefs and mindset. The Malfoy family also apparently had routine gatherings with other willing but escaped Death Eaters (apparently what Voldemort’s followers called themselves) to reminisce about the “good old days” under their master.

Harry decided to thumb his nose at the headmaster today by going down for the rest of breakfast since the newspaper had all but exonerated him.

The mood at the Slytherin table was somber, and Harry could hear some of the Weasleys giggling over Draco’s enraged outburst at the article. Apparently Snape had whisked him away back to the Slytherin common room to vent, and many of the Death Eaters’ children were none too pleased at the idea of their parents being found out.

“Hello Harry.”

“Good morning Luna,” Harry replied, “How may I help you?”

“My housemates were wondering how Parseltongue works, and since none of us seem to know of any books that describe it, I thought I’d ask you.”

“Well it’s really odd as second languages go, because I never realize that I’m using it. I have to be looking at or at least imagine I’m talking to a snake to even speak it, and I just think I’m speaking an ordinary language unless someone says something.”

Luna nodded her understanding, and Harry decided to ask, “Why are your housemates so interested in Parseltongue now?”

“Oh, well since the article came out and people know how much you and Draco dislike each other, everyone is sure that you’re not Slytherin’s heir now. But now people are wondering who is and if there’s a way to tell.”

Harry shrugged. “Short of making everybody try to talk to a snake I don’t think there is. And besides, doesn’t the article say something about a cursed diary?”

“It does, but nobody wants to bring out their diaries for some reason.”

Smiling at the very thought, Harry jokingly says, “I wonder why.”

Somewhat sagely, Luna replied, “I suspect that they don’t want to risk exposing the deep secrets they have in their diaries to the world.”

Harry nodded, still smiling, and the two parted ways to finish their breakfast.

Over the break dorms were searched at random by visiting aurors, and occasionally suspects were instructed to try to speak to a conjured snake, but while there were a number of cursed diaries discovered, all of them were minor curses designed to ensure privacy, nothing on par with a Dark Lord who’d brought a magical nation to its knees. Furthermore, it seemed that no one apart from Harry could speak Parseltongue, leading to a simple but frightening deduction.

The diary was now stashed in the Chamber of Secrets, and the curse - however it worked - somehow could bestow and remove the ability to speak Parseltongue as needed.

This meant that there was only one way to solve the mystery: to locate the legendary Chamber of Secrets. Unfortunately, this lead to a number of harebrained theories circulating through the rumor mill, so the only place anything productive could happen was in the quartet’s private study room.

Harry, Neville, Hermione, and Luna were sitting around practicing the minor elemental curses when Hermione brought the subject up again.

“Can you believe that some people actually believed the Chamber could be entered by flying through a closed window?”

“To be fair,” Neville replied, “Those were members of the Slytherin quidditch team falling for something I hear Fred and George cooked up, and I hear they aren’t picked for their brains.”

“Where do you think the Chamber of Secrets’ entrance is Neville?” Luna asked.

Neville shrugged. “You know my thoughts as well as anyone here Luna, we don’t know anything new. It’s probably a snake since Slytherin was a parselmouth, and to move through the castle unnoticed it has to be small, invisible, or move through the walls.”

“Not to mention able to petrify people. That’s very powerful dark magic.”

Hermione suddenly asked, “Does anyone know who died the last time that the chamber was opened?”

“Wait, someone died?” Harry asked, “I only knew that the chamber was opened before, never that someone died from it.”

“Haven’t you read _Hogwarts: A History_?”

Harry, Neville, and Luna all took turns glancing at one another, revealing the answer to be a resounding no.

“It might have actually been poor Myrtle,” Luna said.

“Myrtle?” The rest of them asked.

“Oh yes. People call her ‘Moaning Myrtle.’ She mostly haunts a toilet on the second floor. Poor thing. I talk to her sometimes because she seems so lonely. I’ve never asked how she died, but she once said offhand that it was around fifty years ago.”

There was a pregnant pause as everyone digested this information.

“Should… should we go ask her? As a group? I mean… this might be a big breakthrough.”

And so the quartet went downstairs to the girls’ loo (after the boys made sure no one was looking).

After only a few minutes of “conversation” (which here means listening to Myrtle moan about how few people talk to her) Harry decided that the way she looked at him creeped him out, but he persevered. He would not be scared away by a mere toilet ghost.

“So you’ve all come just to ask me about how I died?” the ghost girl asked.

Deciding that honesty was the best policy, Harry said “Yes.”

“Oooh it was dreadful!” She began, diving backwards into the toilet, prompting Harry to reflexively close the stall to block the splash. He reopened it once the sound of sloshing subsided. “It happened right in here. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny, a different language, I think it must've been. Anyway, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then... I died.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Do you remember seeing anything right before you died?”

“Actually… now that you mention it, I do: a pair of great big yellow eyes, right over there.” She pointed to one of the sinks.

Harry walked over to the sink in question and started examining it. There was a faint reptilian smell around it, but he couldn’t see anything distinctive about it that would mark it as a potential entrance, except…

“Wait a moment… the tap here, it has a small snake engraved on it.”

There was only one way to test whether or not this was the entrance. But as Harry opened his mouth to speak, Hermione stopped him.

“We need to research what might be down there, and Myrtle just gave me an idea.”

“I did?”

Hermione didn’t answer, she had already run off.

“Where’s she going?” Harry wondered aloud.

“The library of course.” Neville and Luna responded together.

They set off after her at a leisurely pace, aware that in one of her researching moods they would never catch up to Hermione, nor be much help since she preferred not to tell them her ideas until she found some evidence to show them.

“Rip, tear, kill!”

Harry’s blood ran cold.

“Harry?”

Harry broke into a run, trying to outpace the voice, “It’s the voice again, and it sounds excited this time!”

He heard Neville and Luna quicken their pace as they tried to follow him.

However the creature was moving, it was simply faster than they were and it moved downward far too quickly for them to keep up.

Still, Harry’s instincts were screaming at him that he knew where it was going and he raced to the library, Neville and Luna right behind him.

When they finally arrived, the air was thick with the scent of a serpent, albeit one Harry had never smelled on Monster Island, the floor had been transfigured to have a reflective sheen, and several figures were frozen.

Hermione had an expression of shock on her face and a small mirror in one hand angled around a corner. A prefect Luna recognized as Penelope Clearwater from Ravenclaw looked afraid and had her own mirror slightly above her head. Several students were trapped looking at the floor with expressions of confusion. Finally the school librarian, Madam Pince, had her wand out and a determined expression on her face.

The trio inspected Hermione, unsure what to do. She had a book in her hand, her thumb marking a page in particular, and judging from the scene had shared some suspicions with the people nearby.

Harry attempted to pry the book from Hermione’s death grip while Neville and Luna ran off to alert someone. They didn’t know why reflective surfaces were important, but they grabbed the mirrors from Hermione and Penelope to look around.

Eventually, Harry got the book out (with some tears, but nothing a simple “Reparo” couldn’t fix) and read the page Hermione had marked.

The entry sent a chill down his spine.

“Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size, and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.”

Neville and Luna returned with Professor Flitwick as Harry finished reading the entry.

“Mr. Potter, do you know what happened here and why there are so many reflective surfaces here?”

“Hermione figured out the identity of the monster. Slytherin’s monster is a Basilisk.”

The castle was evacuated. The entire student body was gathered outside, as though the integrity of the castle itself were compromised. A Basilisk’s direct gaze could kill, but Hermione had apparently advanced research on the creature by figuring out that an indirect gaze - such as through a camera lens, translucent ghost, or a reflective surface - only petrified a victim. And now a veritable army of aurors had descended on the castle.

Many of the students were uneasy being so close to the Forbidden Forest; too many rumors about werewolves haunting it, but that was just absurd.

Although considering all the honking coming from it, there might have been a weregoose. A big weregoose.

And suddenly students were screaming and running back towards the castle as professors drew their wands because a truly enormous spider crawled out from the trees - only to be anticlimactically run over by a Ford Anglia with a very familiar driver.

“UNCLE JJ!” Harry cried, running up to the robot without a moment’s hesitation and giving him a hug, a gesture that the android reciprocated.

But as this reunion happened, Harry heard a professor cry out in sudden panic. “We’re missing a student! Where is Ginevra Weasley!?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Note** : Hello everyone! I hope you've enjoyed this chapter - I apologize for not using the basilisk yet, but some other things needed to be handled first. I assure you though, chapter 24 will be quite a show...


	24. Chapter 24

At the announcement that a student was missing, Jet Jaguar stiffened - perhaps not noticeably to most since he was a robot, but he’d been around for enough of Harry’s life that he could tell. As the robot took a step towards the castle Harry started informing him of the year so far and what he’d likely be up against.

After just a few moments, Jet Jaguar stopped to listen to Harry’s abbreviated tale.

Harry’s story of the previous year had been published. Good.

Dumbledore had experienced trouble with the authorities. That was also good.

Hagrid had kept both of his children, Fluffy and Norberta; irrelevant, but good for the man.

Reading between the lines, Harry had a crush. That was a healthy part of growing up, but a reminder that someone needed to sit him down and have the Talk. Unavoidable.

This year’s defense professor was garbage. Not good.

Students had been frozen solid - nearly turned to stone - all year because of a monster. Bad.

The monster was a basilisk, a creature with deadly venom and the ability to kill by way of eye contact. Even worse.

Even technology fried under the gaze of the basilisk; extremely bad for Jet Jaguar, but he’d trained for blind combat, he’d just need a blindfold.

Finally, the monster - or rather its controller - had abducted a student. They were now operating on borrowed time.

But Harry and his friends had a reasonably good guess where the entrance was hidden; a girls’ bathroom was a strange place for such a location and implied terrible things about the original creator, but that was beside the point.

And apparently only someone who could speak to snakes - Harry and the mysterious controller - could open it. That was dangerous. Very dangerous.

Processing all this for a moment, Jet Jaguar produced a pen and a sheet of paper. He then drew a symbol on it and passed it to Harry.

“You want us to call Mothra?”

Jet Jaguar nodded. If this basilisk escaped, a creature with it’s abilities would massacre the students. He signed to Harry to get his friends to work on the symbol since he had to come with the robot to deal with the basilisk.

“Neville, Luna!” Harry called, and his friends came to him. Harry continued, “My uncle and I need your help. Only a Parselmouth can open the chamber, so I have to go with my uncle even though it’s dangerous, but what we need you to do is to make this symbol - conjured, drawn, doesn’t matter - as large as you can near the castle. It will call Mothra, and if we fail, she will take care of the basilisk. I need you both to trust me on this. Do you?”

Luna nodded and replied, “Of course Harry.”

Neville nodded as well and said, “Good luck down there Harry.”

The two of them ran off to start making the symbol, and Harry began walking with Jet Jaguar towards the castle.

“Harry my boy, you cannot go in there, it is too dangerous!”

At the sound of the headmaster’s voice Harry and Jet Jaguar immediately whirled around on their guard.

Harry was about to snarl out that he wasn’t the headmaster’s boy, but Jet Jaguar signed him a message that almost made him grin.

“HEADMASTER!” Harry bellowed at the top of his lungs, “SHOULDN’T YOU BE PROTECTING STUDENTS FROM THE ACROMANTULA COLONY IN THE FOREST?!”

That sparked panic amongst the student body and Dumbledore and all the staff started trying to get control of the situation. In the meantime, Harry jumped on his uncle’s back and threw the invisibility cloak over both of them. Now concealed, Jet Jaguar ran towards the castle with Harry in tow.

They entered and with the aurors still searching the dungeons made their way quickly to the second floor girls’ loo.

Harry made his way to the tap with the snake engraving and imagined it slithering and coiling and then hissed, “ _Open_!”

And then that sink almost seemed to slither away, revealing a pipe large enough for a grown man to go in.

Harry and Jet Jaguar gave each other a pointed look. Before his uncle could sign anything, Harry said, “There might be another door down there.”

Jet Jaguar nodded, but signed that if it was even remotely possible, he was to grab the hostage and escape, no matter what he could hear behind him.

Harry reluctantly nodded, then clambered onto the robot’s back. As the robot flew down into the dark, his eyes began shining to banish the darkness, and Harry murmured, “ _Lumos_ ” to help him.

They descended for some time, and the passage seemed to be a steep slide. When it finally ended in filthy water, countless bones, and the stench of a thousand years of serpent waste, they began walking.

Eventually they came upon a small chamber full of shed snake skin. Jet Jaguar tore off a couple of strips and blindfolded Harry. Whether he also blindfolded himself Harry couldn’t see.

Guided by the robot, Harry walked until his uncle held him back. He heard the distinctive sound of metal knocking on stone, and realized that his uncle had found another sealed door.

With the stench of snake all around, Harry didn’t need to imagine one to once again hiss, “ _Open_!” and with a low groan the stone doors responded.

“So,” began a soft, male voice. “Harry Potter and a mechanical golem. How curious. And blindfolded in preparation for a battle with a basilisk. How muggle of you.”

A tap on the shoulder from his uncle was all he needed to know he could remove his blindfold. The chamber was filled with dim green light, and had a large pool of water at the far end, just beneath the carved face of Salazar Slytherin. Near the midpoint was an extremely pale girl with red hair, and beside her was an old book - no doubt the cursed diary - and most distressingly an… _indistinct_ … young man in Slytherin robes. Harry could see him clearly, but it was as if his silhouette - his edges for lack of a better term - were blurred, as if by motion during a photo from an old camera.

Jet Jaguar flew to the youngest Weasley and checked for a pulse.

“She won’t wake,” said the man.

“Why not?” Harry growled, “What did your cursed diary do to her?”

The man looked at him as though studying an insect, “And what makes you think it is mine?”

“Besides the fact that you’re just watching her without a care in the world? Let’s see, there’s the article in the paper about Malfoy trying to pass a cursed diary from Voldemort to a student, and the fact that you didn’t panic when I told you the book was cursed. Oh, and let’s not forget that you are down here where only Parselmouths can come.”

The man’s blurred face flitted through several emotions at once too quickly for Harry to catch all of them, but settled on anger.

“I shall make sure that I hunt down this ‘Malfoy’ for disposing of one of my treasures so publicly, but well done, Harry Potter. As for your question… well, let’s just say that little Ginny here poured her soul into my diary, and in turn my diary poured a bit of my soul into her.”

Harry could not hide how appalled he was by the prospect of a Dark Lord mingling his soul with that of a little girl. Jet Jaguar attempted a flying tackle at the figure, only to pass through with no - rather, minimal - resistance. The young Voldemort - for who else could it be? - chuckled.

“So, your champion is the golem? Very well. It is time for me to summon my champion. Speak to me Salazar Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts four!”

As Slytherin’s mouth began to open and Jet Jaguar blindfolded himself, Harry ran toward Ginny, but aimed his wand at the opening mouth.

“ _Fulgosphera_!”

Another of the elemental curses Harry had learned, his wand fired several spheres of ball lightning into the mouth of the Slytherin statue, and a voice from within screamed, “RIP, TEAR, KI-ARRGH!”

Feeling satisfied, Harry gathered up Ginny and the diary and began hobbling away towards the relative safety of the tunnel.

“Kill the boy and destroy the golem!” young Voldemort commanded.

Harry could hear the basilisk approaching him, but heard the satisfying thud of what he imagined was his uncle’s enlarged fist colliding with its face and smiled even has he fled.

* * *

 

In actual fact, Jet Jaguar still hadn’t remembered how to grow. What Harry interpreted as the found of his fist was really a full-bodied charge shoulder first into the side of the snake’s head. The creature immediately tried to snap at him and Jet Jaguar leapt into the air and then flew downward, his feet driving the snake into the ground chin first.

Jumping off its head and hovering just above the ground, Jet Jaguar listened for how the snake would attack next, and so he heard the splash as the tail erupted from the water at the other side of the room and did a series of backflips to get out of the way.

Dodge, punch, kick. These were Jet Jaguar’s chosen weapons, and they served him well against the basilisk. Not used to fighting such tenacious prey, the basilisk was slow, and clumsy from what he could hear.

At last, the desperate Voldemort cried out, “Forget the golem and kill the boy!”

Ignoring it completely, the basilisk surged past the robot, and Jet Jaguar dug into his enemy’s hide in an effort to stop it.

* * *

 

Meanwhile, Harry was trying every curse he could to destroy the diary. Perhaps it was instinct, or perhaps it was just desperation, but he knew that everything would be fine if he could just destroy the damn diary, but nothing worked! His own flame, flame from his wand, lightning - they all slid off it like water off a duck’s back. Desperate, Harry cast with pure feeling.

Golden moths emerged from his wand and flapped their wings at it, revealing a dark, evil-looking aura, but Harry didn’t know what that meant.

“AT LAST: KILL!” Harry heard from behind him, and a pit formed in his stomach. Had Jet Jaguar lost? Was he about to die?

The he heard a cry of frustration from the serpent, followed by an earth shaking slam and something clattering near the diary.

Reminding himself that he must not look back, Harry forced himself to look at the diary.

Beside it was a fang, still dripping venom. The golden moths were still trying to destroy the diary, but one flew towards the fang and revealed a similarly dark aura.

Harry realized that perhaps it was time to fight fire with fire.

He lifted the fang and stabbed the diary, which began gushing ink as if it were blood.

Behind him he could hear the young Voldemort screaming a final order as he died, “Escape this chamber, and kill everyone around the castle!”

Grabbing Ginny, Harry sped down the hall way. He’d worry about how to get out of here when he got to the exit.

* * *

 

Jet Jaguar, confronted with the potential death of innocents, remembered what he needed to do.

He grew, and grew, and grew, and the basilisk’s momentum could carry it no farther. He heard it screech and he reached down, jerking it’s head to one side and slamming it against the wall. He then pulled back on the entire body and threw it against the opposite wall, shaking the entire chamber.

The robot had outgrown his blindfold and he could see the serpent now. As thick as a tree trunk and as long as he himself was tall, it was gargantuan from a human perspective, but rather small by kaiju standards.

The creature looked as if it was about to glare up at him, but then turned toward its master, and after a moment slithered into a side tunnel. Since its master exploded moments later, Jet Jaguar decided to leave it be for the moment and go after Harry.

* * *

 

They met up with a now conscious Ginny at the entrance as Harry was trying to figure out a way to fly upward. Jet Jaguar grabbed both children and flew out of the bathroom, and into the hallway. And a good thing that they did too, because moments later an angry basilisk burst out from the tunnel, no doubt having gone around a side passage in an attempt to catch them. The trio flew out of the castle as aurors converged on the source of the noise.

* * *

 

By this time, the staff had control of the students and had assuaged their fears about an acromantula colony (something Harry intended to speak to his uncle about, since he’d had no idea such a thing was there) and the trio saw the large, complete symbol of Mothra.

Jet Jaguar set Harry and Ginny down with the rest of the Gryffindors and as her brothers surrounded her, Harry ran over to Neville and Luna.

“How long were we down there?”

“Almost two hours, what happened?” Neville asked.

Harry shook his head and said, “Don’t ask, not yet. How long have you been done with the symbol?”

“Almost two hours,” Luna replied. “Are you alright Harry?”

Harry nodded but turned to his uncle and said, “We need more time!”

The robot nodded, signed something to Harry, and then flew back into the castle, where the sounds of spell casting and the roars of the basilisk (mostly swearing to Harry’s ears) could be heard.

Professor McGonagall ran up to him, looking grave.

“Mr. Potter, I know that the ‘robot’ communicated something to you. I need to know if he said anything about Ms. Weasley’s health and the situation in the castle.”

“He said that Ginny should be okay physically, but Professor, she was possessed by Voldemort’s diary, she’ll need help coping with that.”

The professor winced at the name, and looked nauseated by the idea of possession, but nodded and gestured for him to continue.

“The situation in the castle is bad Professor. I destroyed the cursed diary that was trying to possess her, but the final order was to leave the chamber and go on a rampage!”

McGonagall paled, but went around and spoke to the rest of the faculty.

It was then that Harry heard something in the distance that brought hope to his heart. Rhythmic flapping as if by great wings.

Mothra arrived gliding over the forest and the student body towards the castle.

Some students screamed. Others ooh’d and ahh’d. But all seemed to freeze at the sight of her majestic wings.

Her arrival was quite timely, as Jet Jaguar burst out of the castle doors and immediately turned to try to hold them shut.

Mothra let out a chirp, letting him know that all would be well. Harry heard her begin to trill at him that he needed to trust her and open the doors.

He did so without hesitation, springing away and entering a combat stance should the worst come to pass anyway.

Then Mothra began to flap her wings and release her poisonous scales, and Harry understood the plan immediately. Even as the basilisk surged out of the castle doors, it was forced to shut its eyes against the deadly poison. People screamed at the sight of the monster, but Harry could see that as the basilisk breathed it began to slow until finally, even as it approached Jet Jaguar, it collapsed, unconscious.

Jet Jaguar turned towards Mothra and began signing. From this angle the sunlight glinted off his silver skin and Harry couldn’t quite tell what he was saying to her. Mothra gave an approving chirp though and landed between the students and the basilisk.

Harry wanted to run to his uncle, but he knew from Godzilla’s war stories just how deadly Mothra’s poison could be. He only proceeded when he got the thumbs up.

To the shock of all the students and staff, Jet Jaguar began to grow, until in one hand he held Harry, and with the other he gripped the basilisk behind its head. Harry did not know what was about to happen, and looked to Mothra, who gave him a reassuring chirp.

Harry felt the robot begin to ascend, and he knew exactly what was going to happen.

It was time for a late Christmas trip home. It was time to go to Monster Island.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Note** : The basilisk is off to Monster Island. Those of you who want more kaiju action are going to get it very, very soon. Harry Potter fans should be advised though that _this_ is where things begin to go off the rails. Canon means nothing anymore, because taking the basilisk to Monster Island will have dire consequences...


	25. Chapter 25

Jet Jaguar eventually dropped the comatose basilisk in a deep cavern, then took Harry to the one place he’d been avoiding for years; the Monster Island Research Facility - still under construction, but outfitted with enough equipment to be a proper research lab.

Each time an alien invasion had been thwarted, some of their technology had been recovered, and in the name of security most of it was housed on Monster Island. The general idea was that any thieves would have to risk drawing the ire of the inhabitants, a deterrent that had worked up to this point.

The Xians in particular had parted with a great deal of technology as part of reparations for their attempted conquest of Earth. They still coveted Earth’s water, but since conquest had failed they were quite keen on currying favor - better to have some water and distrust than no water and war.

These thoughts flashed through Harry’s mind and Jet Jaguar’s artificial intelligence as they approached the researchers, who appeared to be at least mildly curious as to why the robot was bringing them a child.

Jet Jaguar signed to Harry that it was time to demonstrate some magic so that the incredible tale he needed to tell would be taken seriously, and while not all the researchers were as fluent in his sign language as Harry was, some of them could tell that the robot wanted the boy to do something.

So with a swish and a flick of his wand, Harry James Potter promptly blew several scientists’ minds by levitating an empty container towards him and then turning it into a pig and back again.

With their minds opened to the possibilities, Jet Jaguar began writing his account of who Harry was, why he was here, and what needed to be done about the basilisk.

Even after seeing what Harry could do - several times and to different people to ensure that they weren’t hallucinating - there was some skepticism about the basilisk’s power to kill with a glance.

Still, they would humor the robot. They had some special panes of glass made from the same material that could block the Shobijin’s mysterious connection to Mothra. If anything could block the basilisk’s deathly stare, that would be it.

Granted, they did not have much of the material on hand. This would be nothing more than a test using a cow in front of the glass with the restrained basilisk and an intern who hadn’t read the fine print of their waiver (specifically subsection G, which declared that any and all direct experimentation on Monster Island could result in an untimely demise).

Suffice it to say that the cow keeled over upon making eye contact, while the intern (though terrified) did not. So with Jet Jaguar restraining the creature, a temporary observation station was constructed to observe it. Jet Jaguar assured them that within the next 24 hours, the cavern would be its new home, despite the fact that it had already wandered off.

* * *

The basilisk, while it enjoyed the feeling of the sun on its scales, still felt the powder stinging its eyes. The boy and the castle’s inhabitants were beyond its reach for now, but it could still rip, tear, and kill, especially since the golem had released it. It had wanted the cow, but that had been taken away for some reason, and so it slithered across the island, the jungle falling silent as creatures instinctively fled its presence.

Eventually it spied some webbing. Excellent. Spiders could offer no opposition to it - these acromantulas would prove to be a fine meal or at least an improvement over the countless rodents it had eaten at Hogwarts.

It continued forward, following the trail of silk until it arrived in a rocky clearing covered in spider webs. It flicked its tongue out, tasting the air to find its prey.

As it did so, it was distracted by a sudden earthquake. Rocks began tumbling down the hills surrounding the clearing, so the basilisk moved back into the jungle to observe. Surely this would flush out the spiders.

The earth moved with a violence the basilisk had never before witnessed (though that would be unsurprising given that it had lived its whole life in what amounted to a castle basement), until moments later eight extensive limbs erupted from the terrain, swiftly followed by a vast head and abdomen, eight violet eyes peering about for what had disturbed it.

The basilisk felt no fear, for its gaze was death. It would kill this creature with a single look, then rip and tear its body to fill her belly with a feast unlike any before.

And so the basilisk surged out of the treeline, her head held high as she glared at the creature known to humanity as Kumonga.

At first the spider appeared to shrink from her gaze, but then it froze. For a long moment they stared at one another and then Kumonga let out a screech the likes of which no man or animal of Monster Island had ever heard before, utterly incensed by the presence of his species’ mortal enemy. He lunged forward, extensible fang piercing the air as if to alert the serpent to its fate.

For the first time in its thousand year existence the basilisk felt fear and shrank back from its enemy. Never had anything withstood the power of its gaze! What manner of monstrosity was this spider?

It fled into the jungle, hearing a hissing sound behind it, and noticing the silken strands falling all around it. It knew instinctively that to be caught by even a single thread would mean death, and so in another first it fled in terror into the jungle, towards the base of one of the mountains.

It knew not how long it fled, but eventually it emerged from the trees again, and this time it saw a reptilian creature covered in horns and spikes. In the distance, the basilisk heard Kumonga screech again.

The sound seemed to rouse the spiked creature, who also looked directly into the basilisks eyes. It too froze for a moment before bellowing a challenge at it, a challenge that the basilisk accepted. She had been forced to flee from a mere spider on this day; her pride would not tolerate a second retreat.

The beast known to the island’s inhabitants as Anguirus, charged and attempted to bite her, but she moved her coils away, leaving him snapping at empty air with his neck vulnerable. She struck.

And then the unthinkable happened.

Her fangs failed to penetrate his hide.

As if realizing this, Anguirus inflicted upon the basilisk the greatest insult that can be heaped upon an enemy. He turned around, ignoring her, and went back to sleep.

She considered coiling around his neck and crushing his windpipe instead, but the sound of Kumonga approaching drove her to flee once again.

This time she eventually found a lake of calm water. She sniffed the air, cautious. Everything else on this island had been monstrous and terrible. Who knew what lurked here? But she smelled nothing but another serpent. Had she found another of her kind? She entered the water, curious and hopeful.

And then a figure began to rise. Coil upon coil and scales that dwarfed her own, this could only be the Eldest of Serpents, the Guardian of Mu.

Manda rose from the water, and fixed the basilisk with his gaze.

The basilisk harbored no illusions about her power here. All serpents instinctively knew of Manda, though few had ever seen him. He was ancient beyond measure, from a time when snakes still had limbs with which to crawl.

She curled in on herself, making herself look as small as possible, an instinctive gesture of submission before a god.

Manda sniffed the air, and then spoke, more to himself than to her, but towards her nonetheless. “So it would seem that a basilisk has come to our island home, and from the school of magic as well… I hope for your own sake that you did not attempt to attack Gojira’s human hatchling. Such a thing may decide how safe you are here.”

Unable to quell her curiosity (and slight trepidation), the basilisk hissed interrogatively, “Gojira?”

As if in response, the golem flew over her and pointed, and a terrible roar sounded in the distance, infinitely more terrifying than Kumonga’s.

Manda listened to the roar closely, as though hearing something the basilisk could not. “It would seem that you have. Regrettable, but Kumonga attempted the same and still lives. You may yet survive this encounter…”

* * *

As Harry demonstrated more magic for Monster Island’s scientists and the basilisk cowered before the King of the Monsters, Mothra rested her wings. Using her poisonous powder was a last resort that sapped her strength and weakened her wings. For this reason and the presence of children close to her, she did not attempt to create a hurricane when the firebird appeared in front of her in a burst of flame.

It sang at her and she chirped and trilled back. Their combined song was beautiful, but not harmonious, for they were arguing fiercely.

None of the humans could understand them, but from their spot beside Hagrid, Fluffy the three-headed dog and Norberta the Norwegian ridgeback could both hear and understand.

Mothra protected her people, which included Harry, and though her protection did not extend to all of humanity, that was not because she thought them unworthy. Far from it, she believed that humanity could do great things, but that they were collectively children stumbling through a difficult phase of life.

Fawkes was of a different mind. Like Mothra, Fawkes was a primordial being and he too had seen humanity to great things, far too many of them terrible. For this reason he believed that humanity needed a firm hand to guide it. He knew that humanity chafed under tyrants as often as they welcomed them, which was why he’d chosen his companion carefully. Dumbledore was a human who others looked to for guidance. He could control them without any believing him to be a tyrant. So Fawkes subtly guided and counseled him just as Dumbledore sought to guide and counsel Harry.

Here the disagreement became more vehement, the combined song more intense. Harry had a destiny to fulfill, on that both immortals agreed, but Mothra wanted him to live, and Fawkes believed that he needed to be sacrificed.

Fluffy and Norberta could not understand the precise reason the phoenix wanted such a thing. The two immortals discussed human societies in more detail than either animal could understand. All they gathered was the Fawkes was convinced Harry needed to die to save one, and Mothra decreed that such a society did not deserve to be saved.

With a final indignant squawk, Fawkes vanished in fire to return to Dumbledore. Mothra made a final soothing trill directed towards the human children and began to fly away, albeit at a slower pace than her arrival.

* * *

Several days later all over the nonmagical world newspapers carried a single phrase on their front page: “Magic is Real!”

In the articles that followed there were numerous pictures of a half-transfigured object beside Harry James Potter, newly dubbed as the feral child of Monster Island, and interviews with him, the scientists who’d tested his abilities, and even Jet Jaguar.

The articles even included interviews with the Xian ambassador, who’d explained that what humans called “magic” they preferred to call “exotic physics” and that its careful and precise use was behind much - though not all - of their superior technology.

All in all, the article had been researched well, and on that same day and night, live broadcasts were shown from Monster Island of Harry casting various spells for the benefit of skeptics and scientific instruments. Already there was a form of radar - currently being referred to under the working name “madar” - that could detect high concentrations of magic.

Harry didn’t particularly care for all the attention, but it was on magic, not him. Apart from a footnote that he’d been raised among Infant Islanders on Monster Island in secret, barely anyone paid attention to him at all.

It wasn’t long before the magical world heard about this though.

* * *

“Order, order!” Albus Dumbledore pounded the gavel as was his duty as Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards.

It had been an arduous week for Albus. All of the aurors sent to Hogwarts had died fighting the basilisk, Harry Potter had gone missing (until this stunt), and now the muggle world knew about magic.

British Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge had been beside himself in his meeting with Dumbledore, yelling about how the muggle Prime Minister had been unbearably smug about Potter “exposing us from under our noses!” in his words, and talking about how he was looking forward to “proper cooperation” now that he’d have to work with the “legitimate government.”

He’d largely tuned out Fudge’s ramblings in his sheer panic. Their world had been exposed. That had never been part of any of his plans. How was he to make the boy martyr himself now?

But planning had to wait. If he didn’t appear before the ICW in an emergency session, they’d sack him.

“I do not know,” began one of the members, the Greek representative, “why we are allowing Dumbledore to preside over this meeting when it is apparently his student and his school’s basilisk that have exposed us!”

There was another roar of agreement and outrage, and Dumbledore had to bang his gavel again. He knew he wouldn’t be sacked while he was present, he was owed too many favors, but this was a bad sign. The winds of change were blowing, and currently not in his favor.

“While you are regrettably correct on both counts, I must remind you all that it was young Mr. Potter’s idea to go to the muggle media. I have not, nor have I ever, said or taught that the Statute of Secrecy should be broken.”

There was a murmur of agreement, and the beginnings of a plan formed in Dumbledore’s mind. If he did this right, he could catch two snitches with one hand as it were.

“And so it is with a heavy heart that for breaking our most sacred of laws, I must make a motion not as the Supreme Mugwump, but as the representative of Magical Britain. I move that Harry James Potter be found guilty of treason and sentenced to life in Azkaban Prison.”

The approval was unanimous and Dumbledore suppressed a smile. Cramming eleven years of trauma into a short time was definitely something the dementors could do. All it would take was his word that there was a prophecy that Harry could defeat Tom, and the boy would emerge from Azkaban broken into the docile personality Albus meant for him to have all along. Then he’d practically beg to martyr himself rather than return to Azkaban.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Note** : Remember how I said at the end of last chapter that canon has no meaning anymore? Well here's the proof. And it gets better/worse in the next chapter!


	26. Chapter 26

Harry, blissfully unaware of the ICW’s decision, eventually found himself on the Hogwarts Express with all the students heading back to the castle after the new year, reunited with Neville, Hermione, and Luna.

Hermione haunted them all with a nightmarish description of being able to hear, but unable to do anything else while petrified, prompting a group hug as everyone tried to comfort her.

According to the rumors, everyone who’d been petrified for longer than a few days needed to be seen by a specialist.

“But then why didn’t they try to wake everyone sooner?” Harry asked, outraged that people had been forced to wait for so long in what amounted to total isolation and sensory deprivation.

“Apparently,” Hermione lowered her voice to a whisper, “As long as no one was genuinely injured, Hogwarts did not have to report the attacks. Most petrification victims don’t remember anything about being petrified, but no one had ever been petrified by a basilisk before, so when that came out the restorative potions were ordered from a specialist immediately, but I was only out for a day, you on the other hand,” she pointed at Harry and reached into her bag, eventually pulling out a muggle newspaper, specifically one of the British papers about magic being real. “You broke the International Statute of Secrecy beyond repair! Harry, you’re going to be in so much trouble!”

Looking only slightly sheepish, Harry replied, “That was partially Uncle Jet Jaguar’s idea, but more importantly if I was in trouble, don’t you think they’d have done something, I don’t know, a week ago? They’d hardly want a felon aboard the train with children after all.”

Neville and Luna were reading the article with strange expressions on their faces, as though caught between intense shock and utter horror.

“Harry,” Luna said in a small voice, “Hermione is right, you’re going to be badly punished for this.”

“Even if — probably especially because the law’s been broken beyond repair.” Neville added.

Mildly worried now, Harry put on a brave face and said, “It’ll all turn out okay, I promise. Don’t worry so much.”

The rest of the trip passed in relative peace, apart from occasional muggleborn students thanking Harry for exposing the world because it meant that they could share things with their families now. Some students, mostly Slytherins, shot him dirty looks as they passed, but that was nothing new and Harry paid it no mind.

It was when they started arriving at the carriages that things took a turn for the worse.

Aurors were there, checking all the students, but only until they spotted Harry. Then they made a beeline for him.

They were also glaring.

“Harry James Potter,” one of them began in a tone filled with suppressed rage.

Harry made an on the spot decision and loudly replied, “Is this where I get my Order of Merlin for taking care of the basilisk?”

Students were already watching the scene, eager to see how it played out. The Slytherins had hungry expressions on their faces.

“No Potter, this is where we place arrest you for breaking the International Statute of Secrecy, the Wizarding World’s most sacred law!”

“Seriously? If I was actually in trouble wouldn’t you have done it a week ago when this actually happened? My address isn’t exactly a secret you know.”

The aurors all flushed with anger, and Harry had an epiphany.

“None of you have any idea how to get to my home, do you?”

The lead auror raised his wand.

“Enough Potter! Are you going to come quietly or not?”

Harry counted. There were five aurors and they all had their wands trained on him.

“When can I expect my trial?”

“Trial? Ha! The ICW tried you _in absentia_ boy, it’s straight to Azkaban for you!”

Harry nodded his understanding, sighed, and then yelled, “EVERYONE OWL THE MEDIA!”

At that point he got hit by spells of some kind and knew no more.

* * *

_“Lily, it’s him, take Harry and run! I’ll hold him off!”_

* * *

That night the Wizarding World’s newspapers had a single front page article on the “Boy-Who-Betrayed.”

The next morning the newspapers of the muggle world had a different headline: “Wizards Put Child in Secret North Sea Prison.”

At the same time, on the opposite side of the world, Godzilla woke in the dead of night.

Many years ago he’d sensed Minilla’s distress and come to his aid as quickly as he could. But now he could sense Harry in danger.

He set off, following his instincts. Minilla would be safe for the moment. Anguirus and Rodan would know to look after his child in his absence. With a roar that announced his departure on a mission, he stepped into the sea.

* * *

“Dumbledore,” Cornelius Fudge blustered, “You’ve got to fix this. The muggle prime minister won’t leave the portrait we’ve put in his office alone, he keeps insisting that we release Potter, and the portrait is so annoyed he’s started on me to avoid listening to the man.”

The aged headmaster paused in thought. He’d never had to deal with a muggle politician, how was he to know what to do?

From his perch beside the headmaster’s desk, Fawkes started to sing, and with the beautiful music going through his mind Dumbledore had an idea.

“Cornelius, all you need to do is have him obliviated, and ensure that he his told afterwords that the problem is being taken care of.”

Fudge gawked at him, “But, the muggle news-”

“Will hound him, not you, and honestly Cornelius, considering your concerns about the purity of blood, I didn’t think you’d care about the muggle news.”

Fudge paused for a moment as that sank in. “Yes, yes, you’re onto something there. Thank you, Dumbledore, now if you don’t mind I’ll be on my way.”

With that the Minister of Magic stepped into the fireplace and returned to the Ministry, leaving Dumbledore and Fawkes to congratulate themselves on another problem solved.

* * *

_“Stand aside you silly girl!”_

* * *

Meanwhile the Secretary General of the United Nations processed all the information on his desk, Jet Jaguar standing guard at his side, and a wizard in a plain robe in front of him.

“So, correct me if I am wrong, but as a society, these wizards have decided to ‘obliviate’ their direct liaisons with our world — to erase their very memories — and simply ignore us, while leaving the child to rot in a prison guarded by creatures that are demons in all but name?”

The wizard flinched under his gaze, but replied, “Yes. As muggles — nonmagical folk that is — they see you as little more than barbarians; many have the same prejudice towards people like me — muggleborns; wizards or witches born to muggle parents. Truthfully, they don’t believe they are answerable to any other authorities, and even if they agreed to listen to you, they’d dismiss anything you got them to agree to as ignorable the moment you left.”

The Secretary General considered this for a moment. “And you are sure that the approval to lock the boy in Azkaban was unanimous?”

“Completely sir.”

At that moment an aid came in with a sheet of paper, handing it to the Secretary General, who looked at it and then recoiled.

“How long has he been gone?”

“The sensors indicate that he submerged some time last night.”

He processed this information as well, before sighing heavily and saying, “I will contact the appropriate authorities, but I fear that they are about to receive an object lesson in just how destructive a kaiju can be.”

* * *

_“No, not Harry! Take me instead, anything but Harry!”_

* * *

Godzilla’s blood was chilled by these cold northern waters, but rage kept him warm and he persevered. Every moment that passed Harry’s distress seemed to increase. The child’s fear was almost palpable at this point. He surfaced briefly to gauge how far he had come.

He had no way of knowing this, but he was currently in the Barents Sea, south of Svaalbard and a ways northwest of his destination. Dissatisfied, he submerged once more.

* * *

_“AVADA KEDAVRA!”_

* * *

Azkaban Prison was a formidable place. Atop a rock just barely large enough to hold it in the dead center of the North Sea, the dark structure was the only legacy of the little known and profoundly insane dark wizard Ekrizdis. He had made a habit of luring muggle sailors to his island and then tormenting them with the worst forms of the Dark Arts. So terrible were his deeds that the very walls were imbued with dark magic, and those first explorers who’d found the island after his death refused to speak of what they had seen, only warning others that the place was infested with dementors and that those were the least terrible things on the island. The location was so saturated with evil that in the days after its discovery, experts cautioned that any attempt to destroy the fortress would cause some terrible, intangible will to seek vengeance.

Now, some five centuries later, it had been magically expanded to house the worst of the magical worlds’ prisoners, those for whom there could be no redemption and no mercy. The only guards were the dementors themselves, for they were the only ones who could endure the conditions on the island and in the old fortress.

And one child. Twelve year old Harry James Potter.

Harry knew that his parents names had been James and Lily. He knew that they’d died for him.

And thanks to the dementors he knew exactly how that had happened.

His father had apparently tried to fight off Voldemort and perished in the attempt. During a lucid moment Harry hoped he was resting in peace. He also knew that Voldemort had tried to spare his mother for his own inscrutable reasons, but that she had refused utterly and died trying to protect him.

In another lucid moment as despair began taking him, he asked, “Was it worth it, Mum?”

The cell was cold. Extremely so. His only relief was the fire he could breath, and even that only in short spurts. This whole place and everything about it seemed designed to drain away the will to go on.

Harry felt the chill in the air heralding an approaching dementor and gave an involuntary shudder that had nothing to do with the cold.

And then he heard an earsplitting roar and the fire inside him that had almost gone out flared with new vigor.

* * *

Godzilla surfaced from the ocean beside Azkaban and let out a roar of unbridled fury. The moment he’d approached the accursed rock he’d begun to remember things. Horrible things. The worst parts of his life.

His last days as a dinosaur, a lonely existence as the last of his kind.

The hydrogen bomb’s fire and radiation.

The agony of his transformation from the last dinosaur into the first of whatever he was today as his blood boiled, bones splintered, and organs shifted and changed, even as he refused to die.

Seeing Minilla, the only other of his kind and the only hope he had for a family at the mercy of Kamacuras and later Kumonga.

He did not know what this island made Harry see. And truthfully, he did not care because it ended now.

He sensed Harry on the far side of the structure. Good. It allowed him to tear this side asunder.

His dorsal spines flared blue and then azure death ripped into the walls of the fortress. Shrill cries came from cloaked figures as they burned to death, and tiny prisoners screamed in utter terror of the monster bearing down on them.

Godzilla reached into the prison and began tearing it apart with his claws, crushing and tearing stone as easily as the witches, wizards, and dementors that sought refuge in the structure’s walls.

* * *

Sirius Black, currently in his animagus form — that of an enormous black dog — did not know what was happening except for a couple of things. First, he might be deaf after whatever that noise was, and second, the prison was crumbling all around him. This was his best chance for freedom!

He headed towards the disturbance, only to double back on seeing the thing that was destroying the prison.

His first thought was that it was a dragon, but no dragon had ever grown so large or looked at anything with such hatred and rage in its eyes.

His best chance for survival was in the opposite direction and hoping that the tremors had broken the door open.

Other prisoners that were attempting to escape returned to their cells at the sight of him, believing him to be the legendary grimm, the omen of imminent and inescapable death.

He saw the doorway, he was so close, and then he saw something out of the corner of his eye that chilled him more than any dementor ever could.

At first he thought it was just a dementor looming over someone about to die to take their soul before death took it, but even in his haste to get away he noted the poor man’s resemblance to James. But James was dead, and he hadn’t had any family left except—

Harry! It might be a dying hallucination, but Sirus could not take that chance. He lunged at the dementor with all the strength he could muster.

It fought him, but it dropped Harry, choosing instead to use both hands to attempt to strangle him. He bit its horrible neck, trying to ignore the taste of putrescent flesh and the funeral shroud it called a cloak that punished him for that. With surprising strength, the dementor pried open his jaws and threw him to the ground.

He’d never been thrown by a dementor, but he got back up. He glanced toward the boy and they made eye contact.

Those were Lily’s eyes on James’s face. Sirius didn’t even want to know why Harry was locked up here.

No, that was wrong. He wanted to know quite badly and then he wanted to tear out the throat of whoever was responsible, but that could wait. There was still a dementor bent on taking Harry’s soul, and that was not going to happen.

To his surprise, Harry got up. He needed to use him to steady himself, but he stood up and he looked like he was ready to fight too.

And then Sirius got the shock of his life as Harry inhaled deeply and then exhaled a stream of blue fire right at the dementor.

It let out an unholy shriek the likes of which Sirius had never heard before and hoped he’d never hear again as it fled the room flailing.

Harry collapsed immediately afterward, and Sirius move to check on him, but stopped when he heard a rumble and a crash. He looked back and saw that the cell’s entrance had collapsed, they were trapped here.

Unsure what else he could do, Sirius curled around Harry protectively.

More rumbling and the entire ceiling was ripped away in an instant, and there it was. The monster that had destroyed the prison and would no doubt end their lives. It was even looking down now, singling them out.

The monster growled softly and then ripped the walls of the cell away. Before Sirius could do anything though, it gently scooped the both of them up and held them in its enormous hand.

Sirius couldn’t help it. He fainted.

* * *

Godzilla looked into his hand. Harry looked to be pale and cold, but otherwise fine. The shaggy beast looked emaciated, but from what he’d been able to sense it had protected Harry, which was good enough for him. He set off towards the Atlantic. They’d be taking the longer, warmer way back to Monster Island.

Godzilla paused some distance away from the rock that had held the prison and looked back. Then he blasted it with the atomic ray. After five-hundred years of bringing despair, Azkaban was utterly destroyed and the rock it had stood on sank into the depths of the sea.

No dog, boy, or kaiju noticed the dark mist that rose out of the water and seemed to dive into one of the dying prisoners in the water, who gasped and then vanished with a faint popping sound…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Notes** : So, I feel that some explanations I couldn't add to the story are in order. First of all, how can they not know where Monster Island is when Dumbledore has been there? Simple; Fawkes took him there, and phoenix magic is very different from ordinary magic. Neither Dumbledore nor any other wizards really know where it is. A for those who remember Hagrid having a portkey, leading to the place, that was a case of "copy and paste" - the letter knew where to go, even if the makes of the portkey didn't, so they just magically copied the destination without really understanding where it went. This is also why Hagrid got sent - nobody else was willing to be the first go to a place called Monster Island.
> 
> Also, some have pointed out that I'm not spending much time on dialogue and characterizing Neville, Luna, and Hermione. The reason for that is that things have simply been too rapid-fire for them in-story to have much effect on the plot. Remember, these kids are only 12 at the moment. But I do solemnly swear that they will have more to do in the coming years, and we'll get a proper feel for their strengths and weaknesses.


	27. Chapter 27

It was a calm few days for Harry, Godzilla, and his newly free — and apparently shapeshifting — godfather Sirius Black. Without his rage keeping him going, Godzilla was sluggish in the cold of the North Sea, so he was taking the trio the long way home: across the Atlantic, over Panama, into the Pacific, and then straight to Monster Island.

In the meantime, Harry and Sirius kept shocking each other; it would’ve been comical but for the severity of their situations.

Sirius had gone first, by virtue of having to explain why there was an emaciated man where the dog had been moments ago. Apparently, Harry’s father — James — and two of his best friends — Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew (a name Sirius could not say without his face contorting in hatred and rage) — had become what the wizarding world called “animagi” to keep their other best friend, Remus Lupin, company on nights when the curse of the werewolf forced him to transform.

Harry had explained that he thought of Godzilla as his father and had grown up surrounded by such creatures. Sirius had at first been concerned, but upon hearing that Dumbledore had dropped him on the cold doorstep of Lily’s sister, had rapidly calmed down and concluded that Harry’s life had gone as well as could be expected all things considered.

Sirius dropped another bombshell, explaining as best he could the Fidelius Charm and that he’d been thrown in Azkaban without trial because the world “knew” that he’d been the Potters’ Secret Keeper. Sirius went on to explain that he’d switched places with Peter Pettigrew without telling anyone so that he could act as a decoy. In the end though, Peter had been the traitor in the Order of the Phoenix — a group created by Dumbledore to oppose Voldemort — and had scurried off to his master with the news.

While recovering from that revelation, Harry explained what the dementors had forced him to hear, and he and Sirius cried together, mourning James and Lily Potter in a way neither had ever truly been able to before now. Harry also explained why he’d been in Azkaban in the first place: that he’d obliterated the Statute of Secrecy by demonstrating magic to people who had the knowledge necessary to detect it, and delivering Slytherin’s basilisk to Monster Island so that it could be as far away from the students as possible.

Sirius had been more than a little shocked at that, collapsing into a fit of giggles that lasted so long Harry feared he’d broken the man, but Sirius’s mind (though perhaps not completely unaffected by his years in Azkaban) ultimately settled on thinking of what Harry had done as being the ultimate prank, one performed on the entire world! After all, it wasn’t every day someone got to bamboozle the Wizarding World by revealing to the muggle world that it had been itself bamboozled.

* * *

While Harry and Sirius were bonding, the muggle governments had decided that enough was enough. Their representatives had been obliviated just so that their complaints and efforts at diplomacy could be swept under the rug, and all so that the wizarding world could throw a child who’d upset them ointo a prison guarded by what might well be literal demons.

Luckily for them, a combination of wizards’ long lives, resistance to change, and innumerable other cultural reasons had left a great many muggleborns and half-bloods feeling dissatisfied with a world that had promised them so much and then given them so little.

After all, the downtrodden are easily recruited by opposing forces. It’s one of basic tenets of strategy.

Less than a week of charm-work later, and special forces from across the world besieged the various Ministries of Magic, a force from the UN dealing with the ICW headquarters.

Aurors and hit-wizards that knew nothing of guns save that they were “metal wands” and whose other education had been over a century out of date were not prepared for trained soldiers that had been enhanced by alien technology and magic alike.

With only the most arrogant of wizards having to be shot, and the rest quaking in fear of their mysterious nonmagical powers, the transition from centuries of seclusion to integration was set to begin.

* * *

At the same time, something far, far more sinister was set to occur in a forest deep in Albania.

Bellatrix Lestrange was not sure how she had survived that  monster’s rampage, but she had woken in the North Sea, cold, but invigorated, and apparated as far inland as she could. She’d then repeated this until she was sure she was alone, and then meditated.

Bellatrix’s mind was ill-suited to prolonged meditation, but she would do  anything for her Lord, and that meant she needed a means to find him. The Dark Mark let him call servants to him, surely it was the key, then, to locating him?

Perhaps she meditated for mere moments, or perhaps it was for days, it did not truly matter, but she could finally  feel it. The tether of dark magic that bound her irrevocably to her Lord. For many days she followed it, apparating as far as she could, resting, and then adjusting her course as needed.

The pull was getting stronger, she could practically  taste the tether at this point, surely she was getting closer.

At last, she found herself in a deep dark wood, the trees silent all around, no doubt out of respect for her Master. She was so close to her Lord, she knew it, and ran the final stretch. Her feet stung from running without protection, and her stomach ached from lack of food, but none of it mattered as she beheld what could only be her Master and knelt in total devotion.

A serpent, vast beyond any but a basilisk, with a crown of bony spines across its head and neck. Strange, membranous frills extended from the sides of its head as it turned and rose to face her. It then opened its jaws and a dark mist emerged.

“Rise Bella, it has been far too long.”

“My Lord! I know it has been too long, I tried to find you, but I was-”

“I am not blind, my loyal servant… I can see the marks of Azkaban upon you, and I am aware that you, of all my Death Eaters, would not hesitate to seek me out were it in your power. No, Bellatrix Lestrange, I am a forgiving Lord, and your loyalty shall be rewarded despite it’s lateness. You have come at a fortuitous moment Bella, yet more proof that fate favors Lord Voldemort. Look at me Bella! I am little more than shadow and vapor, reduced to possessing the body of my companion Nagini. But even she could not withstand my spirit were it not for my new ally…”

The clearing began to illuminate in a blue light, and Bellatrix squinted at it, faintly able to see a humanoid shape within the light.

“With his help and yours Bella, I shall rebuild my forces to be greater than they were even before my fall. For while Potter has powers that are strange and unprecedented, they are no match for the combined power of Lord Voldemort and Yog!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Note** : Hi everyone. I'm not dead! I've been busy and stressed. I apologize for the short chapter, but I figured that you've all waited long enough for an update, so rather than endlessly tweaking what I've got, I decided to publish it. I confess, this chapter is mostly a transitional one anyway - you don't need details, just a general idea of what's happening in the world at large. (Hint: chaos!)
> 
> Now, some of you are probably wondering who or what the heck Yog is. I'll give a partial answer: Yog debuted in the 1970 Toho movie Space Amoeba, and I ask that those who know his powers don't spoil them for those who aren't going to look him up. Suffice it to say that he survived what was supposed to have killed him in the movie, and has allied with Voldemort for a reason I'll explain in time.
> 
> I also want to say thank you to all my readers and reviewers: I love you all and you help motivate me to keep this story going! Without you this would've probably been a one chapter wonder that was swiftly abandoned and forgotten.


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